Forgetting Edward
by Zosie aka Kizmet The Khaleesi
Summary: Bella Swan moves to Seattle to take a promotion to PA to the CEO, Edward Masen. Did she know him before? Before she married Jacob Black and had a son, Coby, something terrible happened but she has no memory of it, or of her first beau, Edward Cullen. Vamp
1. Chapter 1

**I am having a second try at Vampires, so yes,The Cullens are vamps and Jake is a werewolf though it won't be strictly as SM , (who owns Twilight, not me), wrote them. I can't do them exactly as she did.**

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 1

Changes

"Are you serious? You are promoting me to the Seattle Office?"

"Bella, you are too good to keep here stagnating, this is a good thing. Jacoby will love living in the city and now Jake has..."

"You can say it, Angela. Now Jake has decided his son and I are not important enough to stay away from his 'true love' for, I have nobody to keep me here."

"You were the first person I thought of when they said they needed a new P.A. for their new CEO. Your talents are wasted here, girl. Go, spread your wings. Have a real life."

"I need to talk to Coby and my Dad and my shrink, God, Angela, this is not how I thought my life would go. Seattle? I am such a small town girl."

"Seattle is not that big, you may even end up in the New York office one day in the future. Think big, Bella. Think of the possibilities."

That's easy for her to say, I also have to think about how calm and easy my life is here. I have Charlie on hand to help out with Coby after school, I have Angela and Ben, always willing to babysit on the off chance Dad is working and I get asked out on a date. Very rare occasion, if you ignore the fact Mike Newton asks me out every Friday without fail. I admit, if I have had a really bad week, a night out with Mike looks almost attractive.

I mean, a night out with Mike means a quiet, calm, peaceful night out, no surprises, no pressure. Mike understands that I am still healing.

From what, I don't remember.

Something went down in the break after my Junior Year and I ended up in a 'rest home' for a year and some weird dreams and thoughts took over my tired brain.

I was found in the forest but nobody knows what the heck I was doing there. My boyfriend and his family had apparently moved away a few months before so Charlie and everyone else assumed I had a mental breakdown over it, and wandered off and someone found me and looked after me for some months, then I tried to get back home to my Dad. I guess we will never know the truth. I had some weird injuries, like a scar on my abdomen that resembled a c section scar only more ragged, maybe from a bear or animal attack. I am glad I have no memory of that.

I have to say, I look at the photos of Edward and I at Junior Prom, and wonder how I could completely forget any boy who looked like that. And the way I was looking at him in the photo, it looked like...love.

Yet even his name and photos bring back nothing and Charlie for one is very happy about that.

Edward Anthony Cullen.

I scratch my wrist and laugh mirthlessly. Sometime while I was MIA, I must have found a tattoo parlour handy because I have "Edward" tattooed on the inside of my left wrist and I often absentmindedly scratch at it or rub my fingers over his name and try to remember.

Jake had been delighted when I got over my 'depression' and returned home to Forks and lived back with Charlie.

He had launched a full scale romantic attack and didn't give up until we walked down the aisle together.

I sometimes wonder why I ever chose this Edward over Jake, because Jake has always been my best friend and we were meant to be, everyone said that. Even Charlie and Jake's dad, Billy, felt it was right and were behind us one hundred per cent.

And they were right at first, we were blissfully happy. I got pregnant and had Jacoby Charles William Black and things seemed perfect.

I never cared about forgetting Edward, because he was clearly not the one for me and as I don't recall anything much about him, I can't miss him.

I have vague memories sometimes.

Just words, images.

Velvety voice. Flash of copper hair. We must have dated in Winter because I remember him being cold to touch. His smile. Secrets...what secrets? I just remember promising to never tell. A party, with a smashed cake on the floor, broken glass plates, a scar on my arm so I must have been behind that accident, as usual. Another scar, on my other inside wrist, like a human bite, no idea who bit me. Not Edward, surely? Charlie is mystified about that one, too. He says I fell down some stairs and out a window but no biting was mentioned at the time.

It's another hazy, indistinct memory. I mainly remember blood transfusions and beeping monitors.

I remember his family. I loved them like they were my own and I miss them terribly. His father Carlisle was the Chief of Medicine at Forks Hospital, my home away from home, and he was my doctor for the few years we all lived here.

Esme, his mother, was more of a mother to me that Renee ever was. Emmett and Jasper, his brothers were amazing and Emmett was like my own big brother that I never had so I almost tear up when I think of him ruffling my hair and calling me nicknames like ShortStuff and Li'l Sis.

Emmett's girlfriend, Rose, lived with the Cullens and she never liked me, why I have no idea so the dreams I have about her make no sense at all.

Always, she is crying in a good way, and so happy and grateful to me and she is swearing she will be the best mom ever. Like that has anything to do with me. I didn't even know she was pregnant. It's always the same dream of Rose. Her holding a baby in a pink blanket, crying over it, saying how her life is now perfect and it's all down to me.

Alice is always in that dream.

She is always apologizing and saying there is no other solution, the have to take the baby with them. But it's not my baby, I mean, I think I would know if I had a baby. And anyway, I was only missing for like 9 weeks, there is no way I could have had a baby . I was not pregnant when they left, surely. I would have known, I would have told Charlie. Photos of me at that time show me slim, no bulge.

I have no idea what this dream means.

My shrink says it means I saw the Cullen's as my new life, I was clearly expecting to marry Edward and become like them, a Cullen.

The baby signifies the new life I wanted, the pink blanket is just an acknowledgement that I am the newborn, and they are apologizing because they knew they were taking the chance of me achieving my new life away from me by leaving and not taking me with them.

I have no feelings at all for Edward.

He left me and they went too.

I don't know what I did or why they left. Charlie said Dr Cullen got some amazing job offer in California or somewhere, some place that was sunny and hot and I envied them getting out of wet , miserable Forks, that's for sure. I wonder why I didn't go with them? If Edward and I were involved, wouldn't it make sense for me to go, too?

I drove home to my Dad's, where I have been living since my Jake left us four years ago. Our divorce became final two years ago. Coby ran to meet me at the door.

"Mommy, guess what? Nathan is having a birthday party and he invited me."

"Great, Coby, when is it?"

"Next Saturday. Can we get him the Transformers dvd?"

"Does Nathan want that or do you just want to watch it at his place every time he invites you over to play?"

"Aw, Mom, you know he always wants to play online games and they are so boring. I would rather watch a dvd any day."

"I guess, if he is never willing to do stuff you want to do when you are his guest, then it is his bad luck if he gets a present you like more than him."

Probably not the best way to raise a child, but I don't want Coby being stepped on like I was all my life.

"Did Jacob ring?" I ask Charlie as I hang up my car keys and drop my purse on the counter.

"Nope" says dad, not looking away from the flatscreen.

"Darn it. He promised he would. I just don't get it, dad. We were so happy and so in love and he gets a single look from Harry Clearwaters daughter when she gets back from college in Alaska, and he is gone, head over heels in love, and he forgets the love and the life we had together and our son. "

I mean, I guess I am forgettable, I should have a tattoo on my head saying "Forget Me", all the men in my life have had no problem moving on from me, even the mysterious Edward. I never heard from him again. Not that it mattered, seeing I didn't have a clue about him.

But Jake was the love of my life and he just changed, like that. Like a click of the fingers. One minute he is professing his love for me, telling me how much he loves our son, asking me if we can have another baby soon, for God's sake, then he goes to Harry's to fix their car and he doesn't come home.

My dad had gone to find him that first night, fearing he had been in a crash or something, and when he found him still at Clearwater's, he was fine.

He just refused to come home so dad said, give him a few days. A few days and he had changed his mind about family, love, fatherhood, he was in bed with this Leah and he had already told her he would divorce me, leave us, marry her.

He just wasn't Jake any more.

It was like he had been taken with a fever, he was frantic to be at her side and she was all smirky and satisfied and so sure, so unbelievably sure, he would not come to his senses and come back to me, to us.

I don't get it.

When he finally came home to get his stuff, he just said I knew, if I could only remember, I knew what had happened.

So, that's the explanation I had to live with.

I knew.

What did I know?

That men leave.

That even a devoted husband is not there forever, and can change his mind in an instant.

Charlie was as confused as I was, Billy more or less apologized and said he should have known.

So he knew, too.

At least he knew what he knew, unlike me.

Charlie and I had spent many nights puzzling over Jacob's abrupt departure from our lives, Charlie told me Jake had competed with this Edward when we were together and he swore he would never let Edward change me, then he fucking changed me himself. I was no longer the quiet little pushover I once was, now I am strong and have my walls built in place and no man will ever get through them again.

I am woman, hear me roar.

Charlie said it was true, I had been changing when I was around Edward, but his fears were that I had lost myself and simply turned into Edward's girlfriend. I wasn't Bella any more, I wasn't his daughter. I didn't hang out with my friends and I cared for nothing but being with Edward.

Sometimes when I see wildflowers in a florist, it makes me feel something...like, happy? Like they mean something to me?

I asked Charlie if Edward ever gave me wildflowers but he said no, he never gave me flowers except for my wrist corsage for the Junior Prom.

God, my life sucks when I think about it.

At least I don't miss Edward, like I miss Jake. I see him now and then, with Leah, and their kids, and he barely looks at me. It's like I was some teenage crush he got over.

"Get in the car, Coby, we will go buy Nathan's present now."

I need a few things from the supermarket to make dinner anyway.

Coby is walking along, reading the back of the dvd cover haltingly as he comes to words he can't read yet, and I almost bump into Jake, who is standing in the aisle but his attention is all on Leah, as usual.

She is not that pretty, no way could you call her beautiful in any light, yet Jake looks at her like men look at beauty queens and film stars and super models.

She is scrawny and plain, if you ask me.

"Hello Jake. You said you would ring Coby once a week and yet you haven't. Can't you spare your firstborn a five minute phone call at least?"

"Bella" he says, like he had no idea who I was and it finally clicked in his brain.

I am only your first wife, asshole.

"Sorry. I meant to ring your son but I forgot. I am just so busy with Leah these days."

Yes, we know, your entire world revolves around her now.

But Coby is his child, too.

It's so unfair he has two more children and because she is their mother, they are precious, but my son, our son, is nothing to him now.

Coby is the image of Jake. Coffee colored skin, jet black hair, big brown, almost black eyes. He hardly has any of me in him.

His hair is silky and too long for a boy of six but who cares, he likes it like that.

I always loved Jake's long black hair.

Shit.

I have to stop thinking about it.

Jake is no longer mine, I need to get over him.

I decide in that moment to take the job in Seattle, to uproot Coby and take him away from my dad and his home and start again.

"I am moving to Seattle. I got a promotion at work" I tell Jake.

It's like I told him the sky is blue.

He nods and walks away, completely uncaring that he may never see his eldest son again.

I know, Seattle is not that far away, but still. I may meet some handsome man and marry him and let him be a new dad to Coby, that would teach Jake.

I want to scream and kick him and make him admit he has another son, apart from the new baby Leah just had. They have a daughter , too, and she is lovely, and it makes me wish we had managed to conceive again before Jake's world went off it's axis and Leah became his universe.

I would love to raise a girl some day but as I am never letting any man into my heart again, that is unlikely to happen.

I decide to ask the doctor about any records that will need to be transferred and so we stop at the hospital and the receptionist assures me that won't be a problem and she makes me copies while I wait.

Charlie is hungry and Coby is excited about the dvd and so I open it and let him watch it. Heck, I can buy something else for Nathan. Coby accepts Jake ignoring him, I guess he was only two when his father defected, but still, I feel sad for him.

I know material goods can't fill the gap Jake left but what else can I offer?

Over dinner, I gather my courage and announce my plans to my dad.

"Charlie, Angela promoted me at work today."

"Great, you deserve it. I know you were hoping for more responsibilities. More money ,too, I expect?"

"Yes, but Dad, I have to move away. To Seattle."

Charlie is quiet for a minute then he nods his head.

"This is for the best. I can't stand you and Coby having to see Jake with Leah and their kids all the time. Some day Coby will realize that new son of Jake's is the apple of his eye, he is already announcing the boy is the new Chief...I mean, Coby here has to resent it at some point.

I can't believe it, still. I look at Leah and I wonder just what sort of spell she put on him. She isn't anything to look at, she has a very cold personality, yet the moon and the sun rise and set in her for him. I have no explanation."

"Neither do I. It would be easier if he had been seeing her for a while, and we could see his attraction building up ,and see it turning into something more. He barely ever mentioned her, she seemed to be nothing more important than her brother Seth, and Jake never cared much for Seth. They were just Harry's kids. The she goes away to college and comes back suddenly the most desirable woman in the world to him? It's not like she changed, went from a plain little girl to a butterfly. She looks much the same as ever. I just don't get it."

We both shook our heads, life is beyond understanding sometimes.

"When are you going?"

"I have to start the 10th of next month so I have three weeks to get everything sorted. I will speak to the school tomorrow."

Coby walked to the table, his movie finished.

"Here's your dinner, Cobes, your favorite."

"Spaghetti and meatballs!" he said excitedly."Yum. Can I have more after this?"

"If you eat it all, sure. Coby, we have to move away to Seattle soon. It will be fun , we need to go find an apartment and find a school for you and it might be a bit hard at first but we will soon meet people and make friends. Are you okay with that?"

"Maybe I will have a best friend who doesn't play online games" he said hopefully.

If such a child still exists.

Coby seems to be the last one to be sucked in to their lure.

"Is Charlie coming too?"

"No, sweetie. Charlie has his job here but we will come visit in holidays and breaks, won't that be great?"

"Sure will. And you can teach me to fish soon, now I am six."

"Sure I can. I will look forward to it." Dad answered.

I lay in bed and tried to sleep but too much was going around and around in my head. I turned my light on and looked for the book I had been reading on and off. It was quite good, just not riveting enough to make me read it in one sitting.

It was about vampires and even though it was exactly how all vampire stories were, things seemed wrong. Like them burning up if they went in the sunlight.

Not true.

Sure, they avoid bright days and wear hats and sunscreen and make up, but it's for another reason.

I just forget what. Or how I know. I mean, mythical creatures should have no rules, surely if most authors say they burn up in the sunlight, it becomes accepted as right. But it isn't.

I opened the envelope from the doctor's office and checked they had noted my aversion to blood. It's a phobia or something.

I read my notes, frowning when I came to the part about Jacoby's birth.

Multigravida.

That's wrong.

I have only been pregnant once, not more than once.

The doctor who delivered Coby had cleaned up the scar on my belly and it was now nice and straight and even, not the jagged mess it was when I was found. It had gone through my uterus too and he had told me it really looked like an animal had bitten me open.

He questioned me at length over the possibility it had been a home delivery ending in an emergency amateur c section but I had assured him, there was no chance of that, even when I was missing. Had I been gone longer, maybe, who knows, but pregnancy takes nine months and there was no way I had been delivered of a baby that wasn't conceived even before I disappeared. I could not have been more than 2 or 3 months pregnant in that time frame.

Never happened but he still labeled me as a second time mother.

Idiot.

I always felt his mistrust at my insistence it never happened. And he went to medical school for eight years. Must have slept through his classes or smoked too many funny cigarettes.


	2. Chapter 2

**OMG have you seen the trailer for the movie Vampires Suck? Its a Twilight parody and looks hilarious. Youtube it.(Sorry Edward, I was forced at gunpoint to type that.) Comes into cinemas in August. None of us will go, because that would be wrong. And disrespectful..(I have my ticket already booked.)**

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 2

Moving On Up

"What do you think, Dad? Honestly?"

"I like that it is in a secure building, I like the location so close to your new office, I like the view."

"And what don't you like?"

"Knowing you and Coby are so far away and I can't be here quickly if you need me. Knowing you have no friends here. Knowing you are going to find things harder than at Forks."

"Well, that all will be true of whichever apartment I choose, so I guess this is the one?"

"Yeah, I guess it is the best one we have seen."

I signed the lease and Charlie helped me move my furniture and boxes of clothes and Coby's toys in. Coby loved his room, the two bedrooms were both the same size, large and airy and each had an attached bathroom.

My bedroom looked over the park behind the building so you could almost believe you were living out in the country.

Coby's bedroom looked at the city and he was sitting in the window, looking out and identifying any landmarks he recognized from the Welcome to Seattle book the building manager had given him,

Charlie helped me get the beds made and unpacked the crockery and silverware and got it all stashed away and I started on dinner while Charlie and Coby put my son's clothes away.

Coby spent an hour lining his action figures and cars and models up where he wanted them while Dad concentrated on clothing and shoes and the more necessary items.

The school was a little way down the street and we had already enrolled Coby so he could start next week so we had five more days of exploring the surrounding city and parklands before we had to start our new routine. I was expected to be at work in my new office at 8.15 am Monday so I had checked to make sure Coby could start school that early. It turned out, the school opened at 8am every day so I just had time to drop him inside then walk the rest of the way to the tall building where Masen Advertising and Publishing was located.

I was nervous at the thought of being assistant to the top man himself, Mr Edward Masen. I haven't met him yet but he can be a hard taskmaster by all accounts and he does go through a lot of PA's apparently.

My wrist itched and I rubbed it, it seems anyone named Edward sets it off.

Coby loved the closeness of the shops to the apartment and the large park behind us led to a lot of walks and games of football and baseball, as much fun as when I was a child. Like Coby, I had no siblings so I had learned to play alone. I wish I had given birth to twins now, though the idea would have horrified me at the time. Then at least Coby would have had a sibling to grow up and play with. I know Mom is no substitute but I do the best I can.

One of the reasons I get so mad about Jacob is, I swore my child would never grow up with only one parent. I had the opportunity to date other boys when I first started dating Jake, but he was by the far the safest bet, it seemed, so I never bothered. I didn't want to take chances. Everyone agreed Jake was the one for me and he acted like our love was eternal and would never end so I went with it as much out of loving him as knowing he truly loved me and had no ulterior motive to get with me.

I did not come from money, neither did he, I had no connections, it was all about him wanting to marry me for myself.

He had confided he had hoped we would get married since we played together as small children, I was always 'mommy' to his'daddy' in games of house and we had spent every weekend and holiday break together so we knew we were compatible.

Billy had been nervous and somewhat against us trying to date when the Cullens were living in Forks, I don't know why. He hated Edward and was outspoken that I should stay away from him 'before I got hurt' and apparently he had been right. Edward must have hurt me badly to leave me in such a state that I had evidently repressed every memory of him. It was like when I thought of their family, I saw a shadowy figure in the very edges, couldn't see his face or hear his voice but knew he was there, like those phantom people you think you see out of the corner of your eye then when you turn your head to look properly, they are gone.

Once the Cullens left, he had relaxed and suddenly he was all Team Jacob and Bella, sure we could make a go of things.

He had welcomed our son like the utmost blessing anyone could hope for, and our future looked assured until that fateful day.

Billy had been torn and although he still visited Charlie and spent time with Coby, he was different. It was like the child had been Jake's stepson, not his natural child, is the only way I can explain it.

Like he had been thrilled with him in his life when Jake and I were married, less so after the divorce. Leah was really pregnant, almost ready to pop, when the divorce was finalized and they lost no time getting married. I understood that, they wanted their baby to be legitimate and it's important to the tribe that the Chief's son be married to the mother of his child, but Coby was his child and they didn't care we were divorced.

We were expendable, easily replaced. Collateral damage.

Even when the baby proved to be a girl and therefore could not be Chief, they still spurned Coby and waited for the next baby.

Well, he has a boy now, a son, and the child is full Quileute blood, which can be the only reason that baby is more important than Coby.

I moved here to escape all this but my head is always trying to make sense out of something that has no logical explanations.

Coby was quite looking forward to starting school and even more so when a neighbor in our building turned out to be an old school friend of mine and the mother of a son Coby's age.

Jessica had dated Mike on and off and now I find out, they had a child together, Micah. Jess was broken hearted when Mike didn't do 'the right thing' and marry her when she told him she was pregnant. She had packed her bags and left Forks immediately and as Mike never explained why or where she went. We had more or less forgotten her.

I hated that she thought the reason Mike didn't marry her was because he had his crush on me, even back in High School he was always trying to take me out on a date.

I had never seriously considered Mike a contender.

He and I were more or less friends but never close or anything more, that would not happen.

I was not attracted to him in any way, he was not on my radar. I knew he liked me but I had no idea he had spurned a pregnant Jessica for me, I hoped she was wrong about that.

It was great having a familiar face right next door and we promised to help each other out with child care and picking the boys up from school. Jess immediately offered to let Coby come home with her and Micah after school and he could stay and play until I got home. In return, I would walk the boys to school mornings and Micah would sleepover the three nights a week Jess did her late shift at the club.

I asked her if she was a hostess there and she blushed and said sure she was, so I guess maybe she is something more but I am not about to judge her, she was left alone with a child to support.

She had been paying another neighbor to have Micah so our arrangement suited her better and gave her a chance to save some much needed funds.

I was glad Coby didn't have to go into any formal childcare situation and I gave Jess my spare key in case she wanted to bring the boys in to play sometimes.

The bed in Coby's room was a king size, like the one in mine, so he could easily bunk in and they both insisted on sleeping inside sleeping bags so we just laughed at how young the whole macho genes kicked in and let them.

Monday morning I walked Coby and Micah to school, then entered the Masen Building and made my way up to the tenth floor and approached the receptionist, a friendly lady named Wendy who soon showed me around and took me to meet the various executives as they arrived. At 9am, Edward Masen walked in and a hush fell on the hive of activity as he walked into his office.

"Mr Cullen, this is Miss Swan, your new PR" said Wendy, standing back and ushering me in.

I approached his desk and was confused by the intense look on his face.

I stood there, blushing at his scrutiny and wondering if I had missed a button or if my dress was see through or something but surely Wendy would have given me the heads up.

"Who is responsible for hiring her? Without my say so?" he demanded.

"Mr Masen, you said you were sick of interviewing potential PR's and told me to promote within the company. Miss Swan is very highly thought of in our Forks sub office. It seemed like the perfect match, she deserved a promotion, you needed yet another PR."

"Fine. I will...fix it. Leave."

Manners may cost nothing but even so, he had bought none.

I wasn't sure I wanted to work for him anyway, and he didn't seem keen to work with me.

He opened my resume and scanned it quickly.

"Miss Isabella Marie Swan, formerly Black. You married Jacob?"

"Yes, do you know him?" I asked.

"No." he answered shortly. "Your file says you are divorced from one Jacob Black and you have a son, Jacoby, aged six. "

"Yes sir" I replied, wondering if he really needed to know every personal detail about me.

"Where is the boy?"

"He attends the local school down the street here."

"He lives with you?"

"Yes." Why wouldn't he?

"Is he not the next Chief of the Quileute tribe?"

"Apparently not. Jake has remarried and has a full blood Quileute son now and he is the future Chief."

"Jacob imprinted? After you were married?"

"If imprinted is code for leaving your wife and child in a sudden moment of madness and falling completely and utterly in love with another woman and leaving your family for her, then yes."

"Close enough. It's still happening." he muttered."Even though we left."

Whatever.

He left?

Left what, who, where?

"Sit down, Isabella. Do you remember me? We have met before, I think."

"No, I think I would remember you."

For no known reason,my mind flashed to the Junior Prom photo. He did have the same coloring as Edward Cullen, hair the strange color of a new penny, but I knew that Edward's eyes were almost yellow, like an animal. This Edward's eyes were black, and very unnatural looking as well. What is it about Edwards and eyes?

I wished I had brought the photo with me, it was taken on an overcast day and was not a clear likeness of the boy at my side, Charlie said. He had begrudgingly admitted Edward was quite stunning and the boy in the photo had looked attractive but not gorgeous..

Edward Masen was stunning. Even the thickly framed black 'nerd' glasses took nothing away from his looks.

His suit was nicely fitted, clearly expensive, well cut. His shirt was crisp and new looking and his tie was silvery grey and spoke of his importance and rank here.

His footwear was an amazing pair of Italian short boots, beautiful, like a work of art themselves.

He screamed 'money' and plenty of it.

His intercom buzzed and Wendy's voice announced he had a call from his sister, Alice and it was urgent.

"Urgent but a bit late" he grumbled, and indicated I should go, so I walked to the outer office , shutting the door behind me, and sat at the desk Wendy had shown me to earlier.

He had a sister named Alice? Edward Cullen had a sister Alice. It's funny how often you see families who name their kids the same names. Maybe if you liked the name Edward, you also like the name Alice.

I read once how many families had boys named Luke and Josh and often, Mathew as well. Those names seemed to go together.

And J names, people who named their first child a 'J' name had about a 70% chance of naming a second child another 'J' name.

I guess human beings are a predictable bunch.

Carlisle and Esme had been their foster parents, they didn't name them , but Alice is Edward's brother, right? And Emmett was their real sibling? Of course, how could I have forgotten that?

Emmett and Rose were married..weren't they? Were they? I felt confused.

Alice and Jasper shared a room, as did Emmett and Rose.

The bedroom I remembered had been on the third floor, above the other floor the rest of the bedrooms were on. I saw a glimpse of black couch, music cd's on the wall, old journals, no bed. Wait, no bed? He must have slept on the couch. How weird.

I looked at the files on my desk and pushed these strange emerging memories away again.

Like the Blacks, the Cullens were part of my past. Masen Advertising and Publishing, Coby and Seattle were my present and my future.

I read the files and got a few ideas of how we could go with the advertising for one of the authors new books. I decided to ignore whatever problem Mr Masen may think he has with me. We have never met before so why is he already prejudiced against me ? I know I am good at my job and I earned this promotion so he had better give me a chance.

Just because a man has a pretty face doesn't mean he has a pretty soul.

Abruptly, the door to my outer office sprang open and to my shock, there stood Alice Cullen herself, and she looked just as she had last time I saw her.

"Would you care to tell me how you are still alive?" she demanded.

"Why wouldn't I be alive? What do you mean? I was upset when your family left town but I was hardly going to off myself over it."

"Bella, when Rose and I last saw you...in the hut? In the forest? You must remember."

"Alice, the last time I saw you was at a party? I think I broke the cake and the plates? I don't remember how. I have only seen you in my dreams since then. Sorry if my contnued existence is inconvenient for you."

"Bella, I haven't picked up a single image of you until today. Can you explain that?"

"I have no idea what you mean. Images of me? You expected me to send you photos? I had no idea where you were. And why would I send you photos anyway? Do you mean, of my son?"

"You have ano...a son?"

"Yes, Jake and I have a six year old boy, Jacoby. He lives with me here. Jake and I are divorced. Usual story, devoted husband took one look at another woman and that was it, all over for me, all beginning for her. They have two kids, a girl aged about 3 and a new son who is going to be the Big Chief one day, after Billy and Jake."

"I can't believe you survived, let alone had another baby."

"Another baby? Jacoby is my only child."

"Of course, that was a slip of the tongue."

"So, what are you doing here? My boss is not the friendliest type of person. Do you know him?"

"Bella...you don't know Edward?"

"Mr Masen? He has interviewed me, found me somewhat wanting, but I do know my rights and I have done nothing wrong so he can't just dismiss me for no reason. I will be on to the union if he doesn't give me a fair go. I don't get his attitude anyway. I was highly regarded in the Forks office, and Angela said I was the best candidate for the job and he acts all superior and tries to make me feel unworthy of being in his presence."

"I'm sure he will do whatever is for the best. I never saw you coming this time, Bella. Nothing. For over six years, I have had nothing. I assumed she..."

"Sorry, Alice. Maybe we could meet and catch up later. I don't need Mr Masen to catch me chatting. I can't give him any reason to fire me. Lunch?"

"Sure. Do you mind if Rose comes too?"

I supressed a grimace. Rose and I never got on, thats the simple truth. The dream was just that, a dream. She will still be haughty and superior and dismissive of me. But, she is Alice's sister of sorts, so I manage a weak smile and we agree to meet at noon at a cafe down the road.

After Alice leaves, I get stuck in and come up with a few ideas how to revive the sagging career of one of the companies former best selling authors and ask Wendy who I should run them past before showing them to Edward.

"I will ask Mr McCarty to come to your office."

"I can go to his, just point me the way."

"Third door down, blue doorplate."

I gathered my file and walked down the hallway. A Mr Whitlock had the office next to Mr Masen, then Mr Mc Carty's office sat on the corner. He must have great views if his walls are all glass, like Mr Masen's office.

I knocked and was admitted by a small, slim effiminate man.

"Oh yes, you must be Edward's new PA. Delighted. Just call me Ollie and we will be besties. Don't you love the decor?"

Okay. Cross him off my list of potential future dates.

Ollie smiled and glanced at his reflection in the vast glass walls and fiddled with his droopy hair that had fallen across his forehead.

"Tell me, girl to girl, does this have to go? Should I maybe have the George Clooney style? I was going for the whole bed hair with style and taste. I don't think I am quite carrying it off? What do you think, girlfriend? I can take it. It's a fail, right?"

I have no idea what to say. His hair looks kind of ridiculous and foppy and does nothing for his face but what he should do with it is beyond my imagination.

"Maybe a really short buzz cut? That would make the boys squee." Luckily it seems I don't need to answer, he just answers himself.

He walks to the door and knocks.

"Emmett, my sweet, visitor for you."

I can't move. Emmett? This is insane. First my Boss is named Edward, then Alice Cullen turns up out of the blue, now my boss's right hand man is named Emmett?

I came here to get away from all things weird and unexplainable.

"Don't call me Emmett, or your sweet, you little fag. I am Mr Mc...Bella! Fuck me! Shit! Fuck! Bella? Fuck me sideways. No way."

"Emmett?"

I am too stunned to speak or move.

Suddenly, I am swung up in the air in a way I haven't been for over six years. I can't help the tears because I remember this so well. I missed it, nobody else ever tossed me around like I was a toddler.

"Emmett, I missed you so much!" I cry as he finally stands me back on my feet.


	3. Chapter 3

Yeah, not sticking with dhampir rules either, she looks human and has some vampire qualities. It's fiction, folks. Oops, so are they, I forget sometimes!

This is early so Victoria has something to read at bedtime .

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 3

Reunions

"You are Edward's new PA?" Emmett boomed.

"Yes. Mr Masen seems kind of reluctant to have me hold on to that title but for the moment, I am his PA."

"Fuck. I can only assume you got past Alice somehow. I really thought you were...you know?"

"No, I don't. What?"

"Rosie and Alice were distraught they couldn't save you. When Victoria and Riley and Laurent returned and almost caught them, they had to take the baby and flee, but they have been tortured thinking they left you to die at her hands."

I shook my head.

"Whoa, slow down, Emmett. The last time I saw any of you Cullens...wait. McCarty?"

"Yeah..I reverted to my birth name."

"But you were Edward's natural brother."

"No, um, we were all adopted. By Edward's parents. Then they died so Alice and I have different birth parents to each other and to Edward."

"Where is Edward now?" I asked.

"Bella, what the hell do you mean? You work for him."

"Edward Masen is Edward Cullen?"

"Bella."

"What?"

"This is too screwy. I have to speak to Edward. Stay here. Right?"

"Right."

I walked around his office, which had many personal photos on the desk and walls. Emmett and Rose with a brown eyed, brown haired newborn. Rose looks radiant, you would never guess she just went through childbirth.

Emmett with a toddler on his vast shoulders. She is quite pretty but not the spectacular beauty her mother is. She looks nothing like Rose, in fact. Fortunately, she doesn't resemble Emmett either. He is a stunning man but his features are definitely all male and a girl would not wish to be saddled with them. I look at her closely. She is quite like me as a child, if anyone, and I chuckle. How ironic. The perfectly gorgeous Rose produced an average looking baby girl. Who would have seen that happening? Mind you, the looks of pure love and adoration on her parents faces in every photo, you would think she won Baby of the Universe if there is such a title.

Birthday cake, three candles. She has almost coppery highlights reflecting from her hair and her eyes look more hazel than brown.

First day at school? Oh, Rose has homeschooling books in her hand, she must not trust the school system with her precious daughter.

Ballet tutu, Emmett clapping enthusiastically behind the small, serious ballerina as she concentrates hard and stumbles through her routine. Not quite the graceful swan her mother is. The series of dancing photos shows she has the enthusiasm and want but maybe not the skill or grace.

Emmett and Rose ice skating, their daughter in between, each holding her hand as she skims across the ice. She looks terrified. I know how she feels, I never managed to master ice skating and my backside was always black and blue as a result.

Edward, my boss, Mr Masen, with her at about 4 or 5, sitting on his knee. He looks kind of uncomfortable, not a fan of children, then.

Rose, Alice and Jasper with her. She is taller and so beautiful, a real beauty. She has bloomed and looks little like the younger version of herself but there is enough to prove it is her. Just the new, improved her. Green eyes. Auburn hair with brown mixed in. Slim, taller than me, so pretty, confident, red lips, heart shaped face. It's like the person I could have been had the beauty fairy waved her wand over me in my teens.

"Bella"

Emmett is standing behind me, and his voice is choked and almost sad, like he has regrets, like he is so sorry.

"Emmett?"

"Her name is Renesmee."

"Pretty. Kind of after Esme, then?"

"Kind of. Esme and Renee, in fact."

I raise my eyebrows.

"My Renee? My mother? Why?"

"It seemed the right thing to do. Renesmee Isabella."

I blush. I mean, I knew Emmett loved me as a sister but Rose is his wife and the baby's mother. I never knew they even liked Renee. They met her only once and she is not the type of woman to creep straight into your heart. I love her to death but she rarely affects strangers quickly, she is more an acquired taste.

I would have imagined they named her Rosette, well maybe not, but something after her mother. Roseanne, Rosemarie, Natalie even.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when she was growing up. How old is she?"

He hesitates.

"Emmett! You must know how old your own daughter is. When was she born? God, men. Jake has never remembered when Jacoby's birthdate is and he always used to have to ask me his whole name. Jacoby he remembers. Charles William? I mean, after my dad and his dad. How hard can it be? You men have different brains to us women. I remember every second of my son's life. I could never forget any details of a child I gave birth to. "

Emmett seriously looks like he will cry and he steps closer and pulls me into his arms, holding me close and kissing my hair on the top of my head.

"She made our lives so much better, you have no idea. Rosie changed the day she brought her home. She never regretted anything ever again. Renesmee made up for it all, it was all Rosie ever wanted. "

I am touched. To see the enormous, masculine Emmett telling me a little girl made their lives perfect...I wish again I had given birth to a daughter as well as Coby. I love him to pieces but I have seen Jake with his little girl...maybe he would have stayed if he had a little daughter adoring him at home?

I will never know.

"Miss Swan, please return to your desk."

The mood is instantly broken by Mr Masen's voice from the open doorway.

I blush and try to free myself from Emmett. His vicelike grip keeps me with him, despite my efforts.

"Let her go, Emmett. Now."

Emmett steps back and drops his arms to his sides.

"I had to say thank you."

"What for? Ms Swan has never bestowed any favors on you that I know of. What is this about?"

Emmett refuses eye contact with Edward and steps back. His hands are unsteady and he turns and walks to his desk and sits down, pulling the file I had lain there to scrutinise it.

"Excuse my brother. Come to my office, please."

I smile at Emmett and turn to follow Edward.

"We love her enough for you too" Emmett says quietly.

Strange comment.

Edward turns and faces me as he shuts his door.

"My brother turned into a complete fool the day Rose found that orphan. She has them both wrapped around her little finger. To think, Emmett used to be the strongest of all of us, and now he quivers and shakes if the child has even a slight cold or rash. He has been like a hysterical mess since she joined the family. Makes me glad I never had children, really."

He doesn't look like a man who would welcome children into his life. He is so meticulous and ordered, I am sure a child would be to messy and uncontrollable for him.

"Do you like your niece?" I ask, because it is hard to judge by his words, his eyes have softened when he speaks, belying what he is saying.

"She...captivates me in a way nobody else has since...high school. In a different way, of course, but she reminds me so much of...my high school sweetheart. I sometimes fear I love her more because she is like that girl than I do for herself."

He looks lost in memories.

"How about you, Bella? Any high school loves still in your heart?"

"I don't think I dated a lot in high school. I had one boyfriend..wait. Shit, I am so confused. Are you Edward Cullen?"

"I am, I was. I use my birth name, Masen, now."

"I dated you in high school?"

"You did...have you truly forgotten me, Isabella?"

"I...I'm sorry. Something happened. I went a little crazy when you left and I guess my brain had to protect me. I don't really remember you. I hear your voice sometimes and I see you sitting at a piano? Did you play?"

"I used to. Not now."

"Too busy" I nod, understanding.

"Too painful" he replies softly.

His hands look okay, his fingers are long and strong and I can't imagine why playing a piano hurts them.

"I'm sorry. I kind of hear music in my dreams, someone playing a piano, maybe it is you."

"Maybe it is." he says, looking almost..hopeful.

"I never forgot you. I remember every single second we spent together. I remember our first kiss, how I had to fight to achieve it, how scared it made me, how I feared hurting you."

"I am sure you are not that bad of a kisser" I chuckle.

He is watching me closely, looking up from where he sits, looking through his perfect, thick eyelashes. He looks different. Gentle. Sentimental. Almost in pain.

"I remember the first time we made love. How I let you convince me I could do it and leave you alive. You were right, you were always right."

"Edward, surely you didn't think you would be that rough, that..out of control making love? Was I your first?"

I wish I could remember. Was he my first?

"You were my only." he replies, shaking me to my core.

"Only you, Isabella. Only you."

I had to go, I couldn't stand here, seeing him have memories I had forgotten or repressed, it hurt somehow and felt too surreal.

"May I go to lunch? I am meeting Alice. And Rose."

"Oh, then you will meet Renesmee. Rose never goes anywhere without her, guards her like a pitbull. She is amazing, you will love her. Everybody does. So strange, she is not even blood to any of us, some strangers child. I thought maybe Emmett fathered her at first, because they were both so besotted, then I figured, if Emmett had fathered her, he would be a pile of ashes, Rosie would never forgive him or take in his child under those circumstances. She found her in a forest."

A forest?

"Her mother?"

"Dead. They never survive the birth. I even feared, lately... You will understand when you meet her, see her. I'm glad it wasn't you.I am glad you are alive."

I was lost in a forest once. I remember, wandering, everything looked the same, so green, so wet, so never ending, so cold, so tempting to lie down and curl into a ball and let myself be taken over by the misery.

Sam found me. He is a friend of Jacob's. He took me home to Charlie and they rushed me to the hospital. The gash on my belly was oozing blood and infected and I apparently hung between life and death for some weeks.

Then when I got better, I was crazy insane and Charlie had cried and had me locked away, I had no idea who I was or who he was, it took months to become Isabella Swan again.

I remember screaming all night, until they sedated me. The drugs only locked me deep inside my head, inside the nightmares.

The woman with the flaming red hair, the man with the long dreadlocks, the blond, well built Riley, who did all her bidding like he had no thoughts or will of his own.

Laurent.

That was the black man.

"Let me kill her for you, or change her. I would be happy to train her, get her through the newborn stage."

I wasn't a newborn, a baby. None of it made any sense.

I repeated it all to the psychiatrist and they drugged me more until I realized it was just my broken mind imagining all these conversations.

"It's a better revenge. She lives but she forgets him. When he comes back from Italy or Spain, wherever he ran, he will want her back and she won't give him the time of day. She will actually be scared of him, her natural instincts should warn her that he is something else and she won't want him. Imagine that. He will go insane himself, maybe run to the Volturi and beg them to end him. He won't ever be happy without his little pet girl. James would love it. James will feel I righted the wrong."

I knew nobody named James. I had never done him any wrong.

He didn't exist, that what the shrinks decided. I saw him fly across a room, shatter in a mirror. I saw him repeated endlessly, there were many of him, he was everywhere. He could move so fast I didn't see him leave, he would just appear somewhere else instantly. He smiled but it wasn't a nice smile. It was cruel and cold and full of glee that he could hurt like this.

I knew he could kill me but he didn't want to do that.

Sometimes even I knew my dreams were fucked up. I dreamt of the bonfires at the Res only they would change and suddenly I could see Alice and Jasper and Emmett at them, and the Quileutes were gone, it was just the Cullens, dancing and tossing wood onto the blaze, the men high on adrenalin, laughing and cheering, Alice jubilant, me, I was watching through hazy eyes, burning like I was inside the bonfire.

Screaming, screaming, always screaming.

Carlisle, I sensed him there, he had his hand inside my leg. Edward, was it Edward?, beseeching him.

He did bite me! I remember now. It was Edward, I can see him biting my wrist, his eyes all red and glowing, must be reflecting the fire.

He is grasping my arm, pulling me closer.

"You have to stop, Edward, you are killing her. Find the strength."

No, that was all part of the insanity.

I rubbed my wrists, his name, his bite mark.

"Brand her, so she will see his name there forever and not know he he was. Make her worry and seek information. Her father will tell her how much in love they were and she will cry and not understand. And she will reject the mighty Edward and never give him what he got from her before."

She slapped the blond Riley.

"If you hadn't delayed us, we would have the child. He would have done anything, begged, pleaded, we could have destroyed it right in front of his eyes, sent him into Hell forever. He would never recover from seeing his own flesh and blood turned into ashes. He would have fought, tried to kill us, we could have killed him, but killing is too kind, too good for him. I need him to spend eternity never being able to love again, never having his mate back. How simply delicious, to see her everyday, with the Black boy. Dazzle her, Laurent. Make her think she loves the Indian lad. I want front row seats, I want to see Edward at the wedding, I want to see him cry tears of blood and venom."

"He didn't know about the baby. He hasn't been back since he left her in the forest that day, she didn't know herself. It was too early for a human to detect, even for him, no heartbeat yet, it had no even implanted inside her. Only conceived two days before, on her 18th birthday."

"Pity. I wish he knew. His family have it, he will have the child to raise. I wish he didn't."

"We could delay his return. Leave it so he never sees the product of their coupling for years."

"Do it, that would be even sweeter. He will work it out one day and know he missed out on raising their dhampir."

"You fool, Laurent, she doesn't remember anything. Too much."

I refused to allow myself to go back there, to the insanity.

I take enough sleeping tablets to keep a village supplied, but if I don't I have the dreams, over and over. I scream in pain, in agony, I feel my belly rip open , I feel my wrist burn, I feel my bones and flesh burning on and on, I hear Edward say he will make it better.

Enough.

I have real things to worry about.

Alice and Rose and a girl too old to be Renesmee are sitting at an inside table at the very back.

Rose stands and steps forward, embracing me like a long lost love and I am confused.

"Bella" she says my name like I am a deity.

Alice smiles and looks like she would cry if she could.

Why doesn't she, then?

"Edward doesn't know. We never found him, not until she was already so bonded with Emmett and I that it would have been cruel to them both. He didn't come back for years, it wasn't my fault."

"Rose, I need the English translation. Where did Edward go?"

"Spain, Italy. He sulked and tortured himself for years. Lived in a flithy bell tower. Fed on rats and..."

"Rose, enough." Alice warned.

"Edward ate rats?" I said, screwing my eyes up at the thought. I mean, I don't remember him but rats?

"She doesn't mean rats, literally. She means poor quality food, like rats eat." said Alice.

The teenager with them was smiling shyly.

"Bella, this is Renesmee."

"How can it be?" I ask, confused."She wasn't even born when I left, I mean, I didn't even know you were pregnant. Oh, you weren't."

Then I freeze, does the girl know she is adopted?

"It's okay Bella. Renesmee knows she isn't Rose's biological child."

"I thought she was younger."

"She...is tall for her age and matured really fast. It's part of the disorder she has inherited from her parents. She was born only seven years ago but her body is the maturity of a seventeen year old."

"Oh my God, will she keep ageing this fast? Is it a form of progeria?"

"Kind of but luckily the form she has stops at this age, from now on she will look like this for...some years. Her peers will catch up to her and all her life, she will look much more youthful than she should."

I smiled at Renesmee.

"So, it's a two edged sword. You look older now but younger later. Lucky you. Rose and Alice still look like they did when I first met them, maybe they have it too."

They all exchanged glances and laughed.

"You are the one Edward loves and can't ever move on from." Renesmee states.

"Oh, I think that is an exaggeration. We haven't seen each other for years now. I was eighteen when he left me. Eighteen years and two days, to be exact."

"How old are you now?"

"Twenty five."

"He had better do it soon or you will look .."

"Renesmee" cautioned Alice.

"Sorry. I forgot. I forgot she forgot."

I laughed nervously. I forgot a lot but I had no idea everyone knew.

"I just forgot Edward. I remember Alice and Rose and Emmett and Jasper. I remember Carlisle and Esme, and I can't wait to see them again."

"I hoped you would say that. They are joining us here today."

Esme virtually ran to me and embraced me in her arms so long even I felt overwhelmed.

"Bella, we thought... This is a miracle. If only we had known."

"Enough of the cryptic comments. You thought what?"

"We thought you had died, in an accident. Alice and Rose...heard you had died. We never looked for you again because we all thought you were dead."

"No, not dead, I got married, had a son, got divorced."

"You got married, who to?"

"Jacob Black."

"What happened?" asked Carlisle, taking his wife's place and holding me like I was still dear to him.

"He went to Harry's one day to work on their truck and fell instantly in love with Leah, Harry's daughter."

"Hadn't he seen her...in a while?"

"She went to college in Alaska four years earlier and could never afford to come home, she worked in the school breaks."

"I'm sorry that happened to you, Bella. It was always a risk."

"What was always a risk? Sorry if I am being rude but you all talk in riddles and I have forgotten so much. It's not helpful."

"The Quileutes have a history of being fixated suddenly on women and they are completely unable to resist. As you have found out for yourself, they have no will to fight against it. It's called imprinting."

"Oh, Edward said that. Is that true? Jacob had no choice?"

"None. It's a force of nature and it's like trying to stop a hurricane and an earthquake and the sun from setting. No man can fight it."

I sat and pondered this new idea. Jake hadn't just gone off me? It was out of his control. I don't know whether to feel better or worse.

"Is it reversible?"

"No, sweetheart. It's like it is for us..Cullens. We mate for life, you know."

I sucked in a breath.

"What? You mean, when Renesmee said Edward can't get over me, it's a fact?"

"He wouldn't want us to burden you, Bella. The last thing he would want is for you to feel obligated to him."

"Why did I forget him and everything between us? Did I imprint on Jake? Will I always be uselessly in love with a man I can't have back?"

"You can't have imprinted but it is strange, you being so deeply in love with Jacob when you told Edward and even us, the family, how you were always friends and could never be more. You chose Edward over him, time and again. When did you decide you preferred Jake to Edward?"

"It was never between Jake and Edward."

"Bella, it was always between Jake and Edward. Always."

I shook my head.

"I don't remember Edward. I remember you all but events are foggy, hazy. I remember a party, that's the last time I saw you, right?"

They all looked uncomfortable.

"What do you remember about the party?"

I shut my eyes.

"Alice bought my dress and told me to wear it. Romeo and Juliet. Whatever, I don't know what that even means. 'You bought cake for fifty people and none of you even eat cake.' None of you eat cake?"

"No, we have to stick to a rigid diet. Have you forgotten that?"

"Alice, why are we at a cafe if you aren't eating?"

"Would you like to go somewhere else?"

"Yes, if nobody is eating but me. Let me get something to takeaway."

"Already covered." She handed me a coffee in a takeaway cup and a brown paper bag.

"Ham and cheese on rye."

She screwed up her nose like it was road kill or worse, and I thanked her and took it.

We walked to a local park and sat down and I ate while they talked. Carlisle was fascinated that I had survived in the forest even though I could tell him little. He asked for my permission to requisition my hospital records from after the animal attack.

I didn't see why he would be so fascinated.

"Something they did saved your life. Nobody has lived through that before."

"I don't know what type of animal it was, so how can you say that?"

He looked deep in thought, hardly hearing me.

"I must have heard something about it from the staff at Forks hospital. I keep in touch with a couple of them."

I knew that wasn't true. If it had been, he would know I didn't die like they all thought.

"Did Edward think I was dead?"

"Edward didn't live with us again for years, we didn't see the point telling him we heard you were dead. We had no proof, nobody knew for sure. It was mainly the fact Alice lost...contact with you so soon after she last saw you.."

"At the party?"

"Sure. At the party. She thought she saw you in the forest, do you remember that?"

I shook my head.

"I was found by Sam but that was months after you left. Nobody knows where I was or who I was with."

"I think I just solved that little mystery." said Alice.


	4. Chapter 4

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 4

The Alaskan Connection

"I picked up something once that I didn't understand. Aro had decided they needed to take action about something that Irina tipped him off about. She went to Italy and reported something to the Volturi. She said she did it for Tanya's sake."

"Tanya. That name rings a bell." I said.

They looked a little uneasy.

"Tanya lives in Alaska." I said, no idea how I know that.

"Edward was someone Tanya always...wanted to be closer to. She tried many times but he was never interested. He went there that first day of high school. Do you remember?"

I remembered walking into class. I had left Forks to live with my mother for a while and when I returned, the Cullens had moved into town two years earlier, weeks after I had left to live with Renee.

I remember walking towards Edward and he had clung to the biology table and glared at me and he ran from the room the instant class was done. I remember he didn't come back for weeks.

I remember missing him!

"I just had some flashes of recall. He went to Alaska then?"

"He needed to get away. He was worried about his instant attraction to you, let us say. He needed space and Tanya unfortunately thought he was there to be her mate."

"Mate? Like a friend?"

"No, mate like a life long companion."

"Oh."

"He came back and managed to overcome his fears and you two dated."

I had images of an icy car park, a blue van, "I'm so sorry, Bella", my dad, the hospital, Dr Carlisle Cullen, a promise, a silver Volvo, a plate of mushroom ravioli, a waitress who tried to pick him up, cold fingers as he and I both turned the heater off, Jess and Angela, 'I think I should make sure Bella eats something', drinking his soda as well as mine, four men, 'get in the car'.

What happened?

"Everything's jumbled, messed up, cold hands...secrets, 'nobody would believe you', 'I wasn't going to tell anybody.' "

"Do you remember the secret?"

I shook my head.

"You went to Alaska, to Denali. You stayed with Tanya and Kate and Irina" said Alice.

"I did?"

"You expected to find Edward, maybe us all, there. She made you stay because she could hear..see, I mean, you were not well. She was torn because she both wanted you to stay but needed you to go. There was a lot of tension and Irina feared for her sanity if you stayed too long and it was..."

"It was..?"

"It was important you left before anything happened or Tanya would be too upset and Irina told the Volturi."

Alice and Rose and Carlisle all looked striken.

"They must have decided to let her live, Aro must have wanted to watch and study her as she grew, see what she could do at maturity or Rose could never have brought her home."

"Who? Me?"

"No, Renesmee."

"I don't understand. And I have to get back to work, I need this job."

Edward called me into his office as soon as I returned.

"How was lunch?"

"Good. Your parents turned up. I am more confused than ever. I went and stayed in Alaska with Tanya. Did you know that?"

"What! Why?"

"Apparently I went looking for you and Tanya thought I was sick and made me stay. I was probably depressed. I felt really bad at the time. I couldn't have been thinking straight. Irina went to Volturi. I don't know where that is."

"Volterra?"

"No, I am sure Alice said Volturi, no, The Volturi. Like The Alps."

Edward stood up suddenly.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I guess I left, overstayed my welcome."

"I have to talk to Carlisle." he said.

"Something about them letting Renesmee live. I have no idea. My head hurts."

"Go home. I will call you later."

"Edward, I haven't been here one whole day yet. I can't go home early."

"Bella, I own the company. You can do whatever I say."

I grabbed my bag and went home and took a couple of sleeping pills and flopped into bed.

Jess was taking the boys to the zoo after school. I had hours.

My dream was different. I saw the man in the ballet studio bite me. I saw Edward bite me. I saw Alice bite my belly. That was the most bizarre of all. Everybody bites Bella.

I heard the cry of a newborn. It must be Jacoby.

I looked but it was a smaller baby, a girl, with brown hair and big eyes that knew too much.

"Mama" she cried.

She was looking at me.

I wonder what my shrink will say if I tell him this dream?

"Mama, Mama,"

My eyes open reluctantly.

"Coby."

"Jess is here with Micah. She saw you come home before. Did you lose your job? Do we have to go back to Forks? I like it here. "

"No, I had a headache and my boss sent me home early. Of course we don't have to go back to Forks. "

I ruffled his shiny jet black hair.

"Mama, I want to get my hair cut."

"That's fine. Why?"

"None of the kids here have long hair. Well some girls do but not any boys. I want it cut like Micah's. I want it to be blond. I don't like people saying I look different to them."

"You look different to the children here because your father is a Quileute. You should be proud of your heritage. The Quileute's are a very brave tribe, strong warriors. Your great grandfather was very famous."

"I want to look like them."

"Well, sweetheart, you are beautiful and God made you that way so just be happy to be healthy and beautiful and know the important people in your life love you very much."

"My father doesn't."

"Coby, I found out something important today. Something happened to your Dad, it was like his brain forgot you and me. It was a medical condition. You know how your friend Joe had to have a really strong pair of glasses because his eyes got sick and I explained he had a medical condition? It wasn't his fault he couldn't see so well any more? Well, your Dad's brain has a part that stores his love for us and the medical condition made that part forget us, so it isn't that he doesn't love us now, it's because his brain has forgotten us."

"Can they fix his brain?"

"No sweetheart but if he could remember us, he would know he loved you very much, more than anything in the world."

"But he loves Raven and Ephraim. Does his brain only remember them?"

"That's right. His medical condition happened when you were two years old so things he has done later than that, like have those two children, his brain remembers."

"I wish he could remember us, Mama."

"So do I, Coby. But we have to have our own lives and not need him any more because he has a new family now and it would be too sad to be always wanting him to remember us, when that will never happen. His brain is a little broken and can't be fixed like a bone in your leg or arm could. We will just be happy he loves us, even if he doesn't remember. Okay? Now, how about we go get your hair cut and maybe a visit to McDonald's? Maybe you should ask Jessica if Micah can come with us? How was the zoo? You haven't told me what animals you saw."

Micah and Coby talked non stop in the car and it seemed they had a good time. I was grateful to Jess, her help was invaluable.

"How short are we going?" asked the barber.

"All off, buzz cut like Micah." my son answered.

I managed not to cry and I secretly grabbed a few locks to include in his baby book. He had never had much of a haircut before, I just trimmed the ends each month.

He looked entirely different afterwards and a lot less like his father. Maybe I should have done this a long time ago. His skin is fairer every year, and his eyes have lightened to brown. I feel sad he wants to look like every other kid, his uniqueness was precious, but it is his life and I support my son with his decisions. Short hair it is.

The boys played happily on the playground equipment and I took them back when twilight fell. Micah was to sleep over tonight so Jess was gone when we got home.

"Can we make a fort in my bedroom? Jess let Micah make a fort."

"Sure. Do you need me to help?"

Several blankets later they had their fort and I relaxed in front of the television and just vegged out.

It had been quite a day. I think I understand more about what happened but it is still a mixed up puzzle I can't quite find where all the pieces go.

The boys played in the bath and I finally got them packed off to bed.

I was busy ironing tomorrows clothes when a knock sounded on my door.

I checked the peep hole and stood back a minute.

Edward.

He looked mad and upset and I didn't need any more confusion.

If the boys weren't asleep in bed, I would simply pretend to not be home but I opened the door and he stood before me.

"I swear I didn't know. I had no idea. It was only lately she even started to look like me. I knew she reminded me of you but everyone reminds me of you, whether they look like you or not. My brain is always seeking you so it tricks me that people have some of your characteristics or qualities."

"Edward, what are you talking about?"

"Renesmee. Our daughter."

No, not possible.

I sit down on the sofa and stare at him.

"I wasn't gone that long. It wasn't nine months. It was just a few weeks, like three months at most. I would have known anyway."

"Bella, her...condition. It shortened the pregnancy. She was viable very quickly and she survived when any other baby would have died. She is ...unique."

Unique. Both my children are unique.

I can't accept what he is saying.

"Tell me the name of her condition, I want to Google it."

"It's complicated, it hasn't got a name as such. It's a genetic thing. Any child of ours, yours and mine together, would have the condition. Bella, you have to trust me on this one. I asked you to trust me once before and you did. Can you do it again? It's life or death important. Again. "

"Edward, it doesn't make any sense. She is not our baby."

"Look at this photo album first, then tell me she isn't ours."

I sat and allowed him to show me a lot of photos, Rose must have taken a dozen photos every day of her life.

He grabbed my own baby photo off the wall where Charlie had hung it, and we compared Renesmee and myself.

She looked very like me.

Then the toddler photos, hers and mine. In some, she was looking up and the resemblance was astonishing.

The school age photos, the ten year old shots, like two peas in a pod.

It was impossible but she was my child.

And then she started changing and looking like her father.

The eyes though. His are black, hers are green.

"I had green eyes when I was...younger."

He hands me two very tattered photos. He is with a man, obviously his father, and Edward has a baseball uniform on, a vintage version, it must have cost his parents a bit. The adult Edward looks a lot like his father. Their jawlines are the same, their noses, their foreheads. Their fingers are both long and slim. I can't see what the man is wearing, he is obscured by his son but he is holding a baseball above Edward's head.

And the other he is with his real mother. She has his hair, and it is up in an untidy bun, but strands have escaped and hang around her face. Her eyes are shaped like his, her lips are his lips. Both of them have green eyes and she is looking at her son like he is the most precious child on earth, as he would have been to her. He is dressed simply, in a hand knitted sweater, she has a very old fashioned dress on, with a cameo at the throat.

"Her hair" I murmur.

"It was the bane of her life. She would do it a dozen times a day but it always looked like she had been pulled through a hedge backwards, my father used to say. She would put clips in it whenever a bit fell out of it's bun and she had dozens of them by nightfall. I was allowed to help her get them out and there would be a glass bowl almost full of them. It was beautiful, Bella, when she let it down. So long and soft and so pretty. Everyone was amazed by the color, nobody else had hair that shade. Except us."

He speaks with the love he felt for her so clearly.

"She was beautiful. And who looks quite like her?"

"Renesmee" I answer. It's undeniable. Anyone would assume Renesmee was her daughter. It's like she outgrew looking like me and moved on to resembling his mother.

"I don't understand but I believe you." I tell him.

The world is a crazy insane place.

My husband has forgotten me and our son and nobody saw that coming.

People used to joke about our 50th Wedding Anniversary, saying we should book the place now, because it was going to happen. We ended up not making it to our third.

I have forgotten chunks of my life and I have forgotten Edward.

I know Charlie was pleased about that but I also know why. The intensity of our feelings scared him. He saw me married while still in Junior year. He said he expected me to come home pregnant every single day Edward and I were together because there was no way love like ours went unconsummated.

It appears he was right to worry.

"What are we going to do?"

"There is nothing we can do. It's too late to parent her, Emmett and Rose covered that. They wanted to tell me but I stayed away so long, she was so grown up when I met her. And she loves them like they are her parents.

Bella, if I had only known. Did you know you were pregnant when I left?"

"I would have told you. God, Edward, I would have cut off an arm if it would have made you stay or take me with you. I would have grasped onto the fact you made me pregnant and used it in every way possible. Keeping you with me out of guilt would have been perfectly acceptable, believe me. I am surprised I didn't think of lying about just that to keep you with me. I guess, the only reason was, it had only been two days. I would not have been able to convince you I knew."

"Isabella. I am so sorry for leaving you. I have never regretted anything more. It broke my heart living without you and when I finally came back and you didn't know me, it almost made me want to..end myself."

"What? Today?"

"Bella, I went back to Forks two years ago. I worked with you. Every day you looked like you couldn't remember me from the day before, let alone from High School. Do you remember that?"

I shook my head slowly, trying to remember him.

"I called myself Masen Brandon, I borrowed Alice's surname."

"I know that name, I wrote notes to Masen every day. He was an intern, seventeen years old. How could he have been you?"

"I..can make myself appear any age to you hu...women. Clever make up, I worked in the theatre. I know how to appear any age."

"Boy, Edward, sometimes I think I am still in that hospital, being drugged to the eyeballs because none of this world makes sense any more. Why can't I remember you? I want to. I do remember Masen Brandon. He was a hit with all the ladies, we had a few staff wanting to join the cougars and they were always talking somewhat inappropriately about him.

God, every time I looked at his hair, I knew I had met him before but it's only now I can even realize it was you. Why did you do that?"

"It was the only way I could be near you."

"Why didn't you make yourself older, I was on the lookout for a new man for a while there, after Jacob."

"I thought of that, too late though. I appeared seventeen so I could spark a memory for you. I figured if I looked like I did in High School, you would know it was me."

"That never happened. I guess I have so few flashes of memory from High School, that was never going to work. Didn't you know about Jake and Jacoby then?"

"I knew you had a child, I didn't care to find out anything further. It hurt me deeply knowing you had been able to move on, and so quickly. Bella, he was born less than two years after I left. How could you forget me so quickly?"

"I have no idea. My Dad always said he and Billy hoped Jacob and I would marry some day and they both gave up when I met you. My Dad said I was obsessed with you and he even knew you snuck in my bedroom window but he hoped it was just a crush and if he let it follow it's natural path, we would outgrow each other so he turned a blind eye to it. Then you left and I went funny and disappeared.

When Sam found me months later I couldn't even recognize him and I knew him all my life. I didn't know my own name, I knew Charlie was important but not why. He tried to make me remember and my Mom even came to stay but I didn't know her and I started screaming all night and begging someone not to leave me, you, I imagine. It got too bad and Charlie had me..committed. They told me to speak up and tell them all my thoughts but when I did, when I told them about the red haired woman and Riley and Laurent..they told me those people didn't exist and nobody could do what I said they did so they drugged me a lot. I eventually worked out, the less I said about them, the fewer drugs they gave me so I learned to keep my thoughts to myself and just parrot back to them what they wanted to hear.

Charlie visited and held me on my bed and calmed me down, telling me stories of my childhood, and he brought in photo albums and I either remembered again or he managed to plant enough information in my brain that I feel like the memories are mine, anyway."

"It sounds like you were dazzled, but too much. Like overkill. Have many of your other memories returned?"

"In bits and pieces. I never forgot the other Cullens though the whole Renesmee thing...do you honestly believe it happened? I had a baby and forgot her? I don't know if I can cope with that if it is the truth. I remember everything that ever occurred to Jacoby and I would hate to think she was mine and I forgot her."

"I was yours and you forgot me." he said sadly, his fingers pushing through my hair. His lips grazed the top of my head and he sighed deeply. "I don't know what to do. I love you and I remember what we were. Seeing you like this, it just tears my heart out. It's worse than not seeing you. I survived in that bell tower, for years. I hurt and I was in pain but nothing like this. This is like being locked out of life but having it all going on in front of you for you to have to watch but never be part of. I spent too many years with three perfect couples, alone, left out. When I met you, I really thought I was allowed to have that,too. We did have that. We were perfect together. And you ignored my pleas I could hurt you and you made me explore the possibilities and let me experience things I only dreamed about. Bella, you were mine, you slept in my bed, you allowed me inside your beautiful body.

I thought it was enough, I thought I could live on memories, I left to give you a chance of a normal life. I knew others could offer you things I couldn't. I know you don't even understand what I mean."

"What if I didn't want those other things? What if all I wanted was you? Charlie said I would have followed you anywhere, I mean, I somehow got to Alaska, Edward. I lived for months with the woman who wanted you for years, I left my father and my home and looked for you. I know I must have loved you above everyone else. "

"What was it like when you fell in love with Jacob?"

"Strange. I remember waking up in the hospital screaming for him. I tried to rip the door down, scratch it to shreds with my fingernails, they broke and ripped off and I didn't stop. I had to be with him. I didn't know who Charlie was but when he brought Jacob, I knew he was the reason I was alive. I grabbed him and he looked surprised, happy but wary. He kept saying "Bells, I have wanted this for so long, what changed your mind? Why have you chosen me? Where is Edward?"and I would ask him who Edward was, and tear at his clothing, and try to make him make love to me. He kept saying we had to wait, as soon as I got home we could be together. So I worked out what to say, how to act and they released me and I remember Charlie driving us home and I was in the backseat trying to get Jacob's clothes off him. He was chuckling at me and trying to still my hands and in the end, he let me touch him under his clothes.

He was red and embarassed and Charlie and Billy were joking about absence making the heart grow fonder and they left us home alone and went fishing and Jacob and I stayed in the bedroom for days. I couldn't get enough of him, I couldn't sleep and he was getting upset because he was exhausted and I still wanted more, I was frantic."

"You were dazzled, that is for sure."

"Dazzled? In love? I don't know the right term for it. All I know is, I wasn't alive unless I was with Jake. He was my air and my sun, he was part of me. When he left to go to work, I lay in bed and curled up and slept. When he came back, I threw my clothes off regardless of where we were, even in the driveway, Charlie used to speak to me harshly and tell me I had to wait inside for Jacob in future, he had to lock me in.

They all shook their heads and said I had changed, I wasn't myself. I used to be shy and quiet and not want Jake like that, now he was my life. I decided to have Jacoby. I didn't even ask Jake, I just got pregnant and luckily the pregnancy calmed me down and we managed to be an outwardly normal couple. We got married before the pregnancy test because I didn't want to ever think he was doing it because it was the right thing to do. And he was thrilled, so happy, when we found out we were having a baby.

And Jake was always keen to get home to me, he would undress as he walked through the door of our house on the Res, he came home at lunchtime, any breaks he got, because he knew I needed him. Our lives were all about us and sex and need. And then I had to have a caesarian to give birth to Jacoby and my belly hurt for ages and we calmed down to just mornings and night time, because I had to care for the baby.

And then he left me.

I couldn't understand.

I went to the cliffs and looked down at the water below. I wanted to fall in and be swallowed up by the waves but Billy stopped me and made Charlie take me to his house and I lay in bed for weeks and cried and Jake and Leah had their baby girl and everyone knew. They put me on tablets, I still have to take them or the pain overwhelms me.

I guess my shrink taught me enough ways to cope so I appeared normal but in my head, I want him as badly as ever. If he came back to me, I wouldn't even have to forgive him. I would just forget. Just go back to how we were."

Edward looked devastated.

"I understand because I feel that way for you."


	5. Chapter 5

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 5

How To Be Edward

I paced the floor and looked at my family. I knew they all supported me and wanted more than anything for me to win Bella back but Carlisle's research had only shown negatives. Unless I knew who specifically dazzled Bella and had him or her undo it, or unless they died, there was no way around it. She could not ever remember me and how we were.

Plan B. Give her new experiences and make new memories. Make her fall in love with me again. She may not remember me but what if we had just met today for the first time? Would I have been able to catch her heart?

"I say you double dazzle her, Edward. What harm could it do? If your dazzling neutralizes their dazzle, then you start with a clean slate." said Jasper. He was eager to help make things right, he still felt guilty for the whole separation in the first place.

If that disastrous party hadn't happened, if Jasper hadn't tried to bite her, I would have stayed and had the pleasure of her body again and again. The pregnancy would have made itself known, and we would have married and welcomed Renesmee into our lives together. I would have had to take her away from Forks and Charlie and maybe to Alaska or somewhere remote so she could never visit him again but I know I would have delivered Renesmee myself and changed Bella instantly at the birth. There would have been no rest home, no Jacob Black, no Jacoby.

We still had to resolve the whole Renesmee mess. How do you make up for missing your child's entire childhood, or in my case, for standing back and watching my brother and his wife raise the child I must have known on some level, was mine?

I hadn't been back with the family much,when I returned from Italy I only met my daughter once two years ago, then I barely visited with her, I was busy setting up this company and getting it running then I left to live as Masen Brandon in Forks. Emmett and Jasper had kept the company afloat and with Alice's insights, we knew which direction to take each account. It certainly helped always knowing whatever we proceeded with would be a success.

And when to bin a promising idea because she saw it end in failure.

Thus our reputation grew, every single client was happy, every campaign a success, people were knocking down our doors to get on our books.

It kept the boys out of trouble, it allowed Alice to work with her husband, it enabled Rose to always know where Emmett was, and it brought in more money than the family could ever need. It gave us a cover, too, no longer did we have to move house and attend high school over and over.

Now we all chose to age and become adults and live an adult life.

Carlisle's discovery of subtle ways to age our bodies had proved completely successful, we men had enjoyed adding a few years, the girls were unsure if the effects could be reversed so chose to simply look youthful for their supposed ages, only Esme had agreed to age herself to match Carlisle.

I hadn't cared about such things until I needed to look seventeen again and it proved to us all, it was reversible and could be temporary.

My time interning had been severely frustrating , being near Bella but never forming any sort of bond.

Maybe all is fair in love and war. Though if she ever found out I dazzled her...

I can only imagine the rage.

Jasper picked up on my hesitation and mood, so he knew the reason behind my reluctance.

"Let me do it, let me make one little right out of all the wrong. Please, Edward."

I agreed to let him try, maybe two wrongs don't make a right but I need at least a level playing field or she will never give up on Jake.

I rang Bella and checked she was coming into work today, last nights emotional display on my part had left her a little uneasy and upset so I had left without even asking if I may watch her sleep, let alone hold her. I just want to feel her in my arms again.

I will always want more, always long for what we once shared that I so foolishly threw away, but for now, just to hold her would be blissful.

As soon as Bella entered the building, I gave Jasper the heads up.

I greeted her at the door to her office and suggested we have a meeting with Jaz to discuss the Rowntree account that she had started to work on already.

She dropped her purse on her desk and followed me into Mr Whitlock's office.

He had drawn the blinds and the room was cool and dim.

"I had a bit of a headache, Bella, excuse the dull light."

"I know how that is, I had such a stressed out head yesterday."

"Really? Sit down here and I will show you a few things my doctor taught me to relieve stress before it builds up."

He altered her mood and made her calm and drowsy and she relaxed in the chair as he massaged her neck muscles.

" Edward, stay close, she still smells delicious" he said in a voice to soft for her to hear.

I growled back a warning and he grinned at me.

"I can control it now, you know that."

He had mastered his weakness over the last few years with Alice helping Carlisle research tried and true methods of increasing his ability to avoid temptation and develop new resistances.

"Bella, are you relaxed? Happy? You can hear my voice alone, nobody else's."

She nodded and her eyes drifted shut.

"No, Bella, eyes open. For me."

She opened her eyes but they were unseeing and dull.

Jasper crouched and faced her with their eyes level.

"I don't love Jacob Black. Say it, out loud."

"I don't love Jacob Black."

"I know in my heart and in my head, I don't love Jacob Black."

She repeated his words each time.

"Jacob has moved on and now I am ready to move on too."

She nodded as she said the words.

Her voice was becoming firmer and more convincing as Jasper progressed with the dazzle.

He help her gaze firmly and she was completely under his spell.

Finally, when he was sure it was done, he told her to sleep and stepped back.

Bella sighed and curled in the chair and we waited.

"Edward, why don't you dazzle her now she is susceptible, remind her of what you had?"

"Because I once promised her I would never do that to her. I earned her love last time, I can do it again. It may take time but we have that.

I am more concerned about her and Renesmee forming a bond and making up for lost time."

We ordered 'coffee' and Alice brought us in two used but empty cups for Jaz and I and a full cup for Bella.

Bella woke up at the aroma and stood and stretched.

"Well, did it take away the remainder of your headache?"asked Jasper.

"Whatever you did made me feel wonderful" she said, taking the coffee and sipping it.

"It must be hard for you, living so far from Jake now." he continued.

"Yeah, whatever. He made his choice, now we all have to live with it. I am not bothered for myself, but I wish he was better with Coby."

"You don't miss him?"

"Jaz, you know I was never that into him. Sure, we were an obvious couple but that didn't mean I ever loved him like I should have. I feel like a fraud for marrying him. It was clearly just the backlash from losing Edward that made me even agree to be his wife. And I don't think we even discussed having Jacoby, it just happened."

"So, he wasn't the love of your life?"

She snorted and laughed at him.

"I certainly hope not, I would like to think I am capable of stronger emotions than I ever had for Jake. I don't even remember ever thinking our love was enough. I guess he was always my Plan B but never my first choice. Rebound guy at best."

She was unconcerned and drank her coffee down and replaced the cup.

"Now, what I was thinking, Shona Rowntree needs a better, brighter cover. Her stories are appealing and young and fresh, yet we issue them with a plain black and white cover, all very stylish I am sure but I think we should be showing the excitement and joy in her stories..."

By the end of the meeting, Bella had come up with four or five workable plans for various authors and Alice had slipped in and approved all of them, clapping her hands and saying how much our clients would adore Bella.

"So, how are you feeling today, Bella?"

"Fine, thank you Alice."

"No depression about Jake or anything? I often feel a little down after a headache." she lied.

"No, why would I? I don't think about Jake much, only when Coby asks me about him or Jess mentions him. He is out of my life now, Alice, I don't feel the need to think about him."

So far so good.

I loved her answers and we could obviously leave off ever referring to Jacob again. In fact, when Emmett slipped in a question about him at lunch, Bella was so busy running by ideas for a new client she had met with, she didn't actually bother answering him.

Yesterday she would have clung to the mention of Jake and answered with more than anyone wanted to hear about him.

I had my level playing field.

Now for part 2.

"Bella, I feel we need to catch up a bit out of work, would you come out to dinner with me tonight?" I asked, casually.

"I was going to flesh out a few ideas but I guess we can discuss them over dinner. Jess doesn't work tonight so it should be fine. Where are we going? I am not sure what I have in my wardrobe that is suitable for a date."

Yes! A date!

"Edward, Bella and I need a couple of hours off, we are going shopping." Alice announced.

"Alice, I am working."

"And you admit you need a new dress and no doubt shoes. And some pretty underclothing. Come on, the men can work on the accounts and hold the fort. We will need the company plastic, thank you Boss."

I handed the credit card to Alice and grinned at the look on Bella's face. She hadn't changed then, still saw clothes shopping as a form of torture.

The men and I celebrated the success of Jasper's dazzle and we discussed my next move. She was happy and friendly towards me but she was also that way with Jaz and Emm. I need to get back inside her heart.

If my heart could beat at all, it would have quickened at her words.

"So, why don't you just change her now?" asked Emmett, ever impatient.

"She doesn't love me, Emmett. If I change her now, she will never love me. Her feelings won't change once she is one of us so I need her head over heels in love with me. Remember how you fell in love with Rosalie, on the long trip home to Carlisle after your encounter with the bear, and saw her as your angel? Had you been unconscious, you would have never felt anything for her. "

"Scary thought. Edward, we need to talk about Renesmee. We never intended keeping the truth from you but you didn't come back or contact the family until two years ago. We had to parent her in your absence or she would have been waiting all that time for you, it didn't seem fair. And we tried to find you and contact you, we contacted everyone we knew, Peter and Charlotte, Siobhan, everyone, nobody knew where you were. Why did you stay away so long?"

"I met up with a couple of vampires in Italy and one of them had a similar situation but he stayed and the Volturi killed his human so I resolved to never return. Then one day I was finally able to read his mind and discovered it was all a lie, he had been sent by Victoria to delay my return so I came straight home.

Of course I considered Renesmee may be Bella's and my child but I kept that to myself because if it were true, it meant the only woman I have ever loved and could ever love, was dead. I wasn't ready to even consider that. Then when I found her alive in Forks, and she was alive and had a human child, I assumed she could not be Renesmee's mother and forgot the whole idea. So I was as unwilling to confront the idea as you were reluctant to rock the boat. I am extremely grateful to you and Rose for raising her and protecting her so well. She is a wonderful girl and a credit to you both. I know Bella and I will want to be a large part of her life now we know, but we will not push you or Rose out, trust me."

"How come Alice never knew Bella was alive?"

"I have to assume she was shielded by her proximity to the wolf pack. Alice can see her hazily now, even with Coby with her, maybe as he matures he will cause Alice to be unable to see her in the future. We will see."

"Do you know the full story?"

"I have spoken to Kate. Bella turned up in their town and Tanya found her as she was asking everyone in the shops and businesses in town if they knew a Tanya so one of her...men friends alerted Tanya. She took Bella home, having detected the heartbeat of the fetus and kept her there while she tried to find out where I was. She knew the child was a dhampir so concluded it was mine. This upset her as she knew that meant I really would never change my mind and be with her but fortunately, Tanya is a good woman and she gave shelter to Bella and looked after her, at the expense of her own pain. Irina went to the Volturi without their knowledge and when Kate realized, they took Bella to Forks, intending leaving her in our house and they went looking for me or any Cullen themselves. She was counting on Alice knowing Bella was there, and she did.

Alice and Rose knew I had asked they stay away from Bella and not watch her present or future, so they decided to 'go shopping' and left without letting Carlisle or Esme or even you and Jaz know what they were really doing. Bella had wandered off into the forest and took shelter in a small hut, built by hunters. Alice tracked her there and found her in shocking pain and knew she had to act quickly so she bit her open and delivered Renesmee safely. She sealed Bella's womb shut and was working on her abdomen when she detected Victoria, Riley and Laurent approaching. Knowing she and Rose would lose a fight against the three nomads, they decided they had to take the baby and flee and save her but leave Bella behind.

It tore them in two, running like that, but they both assumed Bella would die anyway as no human has survived a dhampir birth, so they made the survival of the infant their priority and they managed to escape.

Rose made up her story of finding some random human dying giving birth to the baby and you accepted it at face value."

"She told me the truth later and I tried to find you. We had no clue where you were, we did try."

"I know Emmett. I am not blaming you, you and Rose and Alice all did the best you were able with a completely fucked up situation. We can't go back, only forwards."

"Only you could go back, in a way."

"What do you mean?"

"Now we can appear any age, Renesmee could revert to babyhood again and let you and Bella raise her as you should have."

"I could never ask that of my daughter."

"Edward, don't you ever learn? You can't make decisions for everyone else. It is a possibility and an option and you are not the only one involved, maybe Renesmee would want to do that, maybe Bella would want that choice. Don't dismiss the idea because you percieve it as not being a good idea."

I shook my head, how could an almost fully mature woman want to revert in body and mind to babyhood, though Renesmee never had a typical baby mind and she had always kept the image of Bella being her true mother in her head so she knew from the start Rose was not her biological parent.

Rose had explained Bella would have died quickly after the birth but something Alice did or something Victoria and her friends did, kept Bella alive.

The fact she was even able to conceive and carry a human baby was amazing, I know Carlisle was completely fascinated and was spending hours online researching and talking to other doctor/vampires around the world about it.

I don't resent Jacoby at all, I left her so she could have a human life and human experiences and now I know she didn't choose to forget me, any more than Jake chose to forget them, I can accept her child with no qualms at all.

What will the future hold for him? If I remain in Bella's life, if I eventually change Bella as my heart begs me to do, what becomes of the boy? She would never leave him alone in the world.

We do need to discuss all this is I may have to face the possibility, it may be better for her and Jacoby if I never reawaken her feelings for me. At the moment, she would undoubtedly choose the child over me. If I challenge her heart and win her love, she will be torn between the two of us.

I cannot take his mother from him, even at the cost of losing her myself. She lost the chance to raise our daughter, I cannot take away her chance to raise her son. And I do have the option of waiting it out. Someday he will mature and leave her anyway, that is what human offspring do, then I can simply age with her until she is ready to be changed and join me. For eternity.

The question still remains, do I tell her our secret or is she better off not knowing? If the Volturi are watching us because of Renesmee, there is a large chance they will send Jane or Alec to kill her if she knows. So, that means, for the next few years as Coby grows, my family and I have to remain undercover and not tell Bella we are something other. I will promote her and keep her at my side over the years if she is willing, I will date her and love her and maybe even live together with her, but I will have to conceal my true nature and I have no idea how long I can do that under such close scrutiny and she knew when she first met me at High School that I was different, something other. Can she be fooled this time round?

She thinks her dreams may be false, that she suffered a mental illness, I hate to perpetuate the lie but maybe in this case, it is better she accepts the lie than questions the truth?

There is no way to give her the option of raising Renesmee from infancy, even if it is what they both want, without Bella knowing everything.

I have never encountered such confusion and indecision in my life, even when I left Carlisle and lived as a revenger and Angel Of Death , it was a clear choice. As soon as my perception of myself and what i was doing, how I was living, changed, I made another clear choice and went home. I am equipped with a brain that can solve many problems at once, instantly, concurrently, but this problem, this decision is beyond even my capabilities to know what is the best answer.

Maybe I should run all the possibilities by Alice and see which would work out for the best.

Alice has always seen Bella as dead at my hand or as one of us. I ran from the idea in High School, now I know running changes nothing, only makes more problems. I have to work through and face this, this time I will stay and pay whatever price I must, to be near her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning, there is a reason this is rated M and this chapter begins using that M so go away of you are too young for this or don't like lemons. Well, yeah, it ended up pretty much an entire chapter of sex, sorry about that, blame Edward, he was in one of his moods.(Yeah, because my readers hate Edward and Bella sex.)**

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 6

Forgetting Jacob

I frowned as I washed the dishes and looked around my kitchen. Jacob, Jacob, everywhere. Photos of us, photos of him, photos of the three of us as the family we briefly were.

All these images lied and spoke of a far deeper love than either of us ever possessed.

My memories of the time Jake and I were married have become hazy and indistinct.

All I know is what I feel now and the many pictures of him are damned annoying so I carefully pulled them all from the walls. just leaving one of the three of us celebrating Coby's first birthday. Coby likes that photo, it tells him we did have good times and Jake did love us once. I am glad I at least look like I adored Jake because he was never more than my very best friend, and we should never have crossed that line. I don't know what we were thinking. I know I was in the rest home and he visited me, maybe it was like Stockholm Syndrome, he was my only bright spark in a dark and desperate time.

Maybe I imagined I felt more for him than I really did.

I don't regret the marriage, at least I came out of it with my son, at least Jake didn't fight me for custody.

Huh! I laughed at the very idea, I think if anything he would have been glad Coby and I left town and he could pretend we never existed.

I can't pretend that because it would hurt Coby so I just need to keep his memories going for him and move on myself.

I thought about the date I went on last night with my boss. It was obvious to anyone with functioning eyes that Edward was gorgeous. Not a secret. But he was also great company and I had enjoyed myself. Very much. Very, very much. He had arrived with flowers in hand and a smile that lit up my world and I blushed madly at his intensity and attention. No, it could not have ever been like this with Jacob.

"Bella, you look beautiful, as always."

"Thank you. And thanks for the flowers, they are gorgeous."

"They wilt and fade compared to your beauty."

Oh, smooth!

I grinned at his words, I am liking this.

I can't even remember Jake paying me any compliments, if he did they must have been forgettable.

Edward had opened the car door for me after ushering me out of my apartment and locking up for me. Such a gentleman, it was like a time warp, and we were living back when men were actually attentive and not just enduring the evening in hope of the reward at the end.

We went to a little Italian Restaurant and out of sentimentality, I ordered mushroom ravioli because I did remember that was what I ate last time he and I dined together.

He ordered spaghetti and I never saw him eat but his plate emptied as fast as mine did so clearly I wasn't paying his mouth enough attention. Weird, because I know my eyes were loathe to look away, his lips only had to compete with his eyes. Deep, dark, broody, sexy as Hell.

I felt things stir that had not stirred in quite a while and shivered as I felt his hands ghost over my skin, even though he was sitting across the table from me and that could not have happened.

He smiled at me, like he knew what I was thinking.

Oh, I certainly hope he cannot read my mind because I just imagined tugging on that coppery mess of hair as he located his head between my thighs.

I blushed and he chuckled.

Shit.

I squirmed in my chair and reminded myself, I was in public, he was my boss, and I am not a whore.

Pity, all three.

I wondered if I was imagining or was it some memory from the past returning?

I can hardly ask him.

"Edward, have you ever tasted me? Have you ever used your strong, long tongue to excite my pussy and make me whimper in want and delight?"

Not quite first date conversation.

"So, you liked my ideas today, for the Rowntree and Sparke and Thomas accounts?"

"Yes, you have wonderful suggestions and I am sure every client will be demanding you when they see your innovative take on things."

You think those ideas are good, you should read the ones I am having now, though they have nothing to do with work.

I shifted in my seat, unable to settle.

Calm down, ladies bits, he looks like the no sex until Date 3 type of man, though if it is true we have slept together before, then maybe this is date 3?

I tried to recall every date.

The Italian Restaurant in Forks...

That's it? Come on, we must have dated more than that.

Does Junior Prom count?

Yes, of course it must , he was my 'Prom date' so that makes it a date, date number 2.

Oh yeah baby, this IS date number 3.

My ladies parts grinned and panted.

I tried to remember how to eat.

Chew, swallow, God, how much food do they have to put on one plate?

Three pieces of ravioli would have been adequate, fine.

Not all of us are football players requiring vast amounts of carbs you know.

The waitress is back and I am surprised to see my plate empty, it didn't seem like I waded through the entire meal.

Whatever.

"Dessert?" she asked and Edward raised an eyebrow at me.

Shit, what is the right answer?

It is a date, he possibly will simply drop me off at home, and leave, so ordering dessert will drag out my time with him.

But if he has 'expectations', then dessert is a big waste of time, there are only eight hours of darkness and I kind of want to use them all.

"The ravioli was great, I am not sure I can fit in dessert, are you anxious for any?"

"Dessert" I quickly added.

Edward smiled and I blushed.

"I am always anxious for some...dessert" he replied and winked at me.

Shit!

Were we on the same page?

Oh, yes, I baked that coffee cake to make time speed up after work before he came to get me.

"I have some dessert at my place, if you prefer" I offered.

"I like the sound of that. Just the bill, please."

He placed his card inside her folder without even glancing at the amount and she smiled and twirled her hair as she accepted his card.

"Back off, bitch, taken" my inner voice screamed. She wasn't listening, maybe a swift punch might get her attention off him and onto me and my glare for a moment.

He smiled at her and told her to add a generous tip then his eyes were back on mine, smouldering, and I shivered.

I don't know if I am remembering, imagining, just horny or what, but my body is on full alert and his eyes are doing things to me that it used to take Jake a lot of foreplay to achieve.

Get out of my fucking head, Jake, this is the last time I ever want to even think of you.

Especially in bed.

Bed sounds good.

Warm, roomy, solid.

Strong. Bouncy.

What the freak is going on with me?

He was my boss and my forgotten ex boyfriend earlier today, now he is my fuckbuddy? Is that want I want?

Sadly I seem to be willing to settle for that.

EPOV

Watching Bella eat sent shivers down my spine and reminded me of other things her mouth had done to me in the past.

Without thinking I moved to behind her, faster than the human eye could see, and ghosted my hands barely above her skin, feeling her shiver in delight.

I was back before anyone saw me go.

Her lips.

Her lips on my lips, kissing my torso, her mouth taking me inside and her tongue swirling and sucking and exciting me until I had to pull out, unsure what ingesting venom could do to her. She had assured me she was willing to chance it but a gentlemen should not be allowing a lady to pleasure him in this way, let alone releasing inside her hot, wet, enticing mouth.

I always kept the image that I was still in there as I released on her belly or her beautiful full breasts.

She was the one who insisted on pleasing me in this way, she shook aside all my pleas it was not ladylike and I did not expect her to do such a thing but by the time I had said all that, she would have taken me in and started the slow, heady stroking with her tongue, and the suction would have started as her red lips held me tight inside, and her small hand would be below, on my sac, stroking, kneading, blowing my mind, as the other crept up and squeezed and tortured my nipple, and despite my superior brain having the ability to think about a hundred things at once, all hundred things were exactly the same. Pleasure.

And after I had my pleasure, it would be her turn and I knew what she liked the most so I would hover over her thighs and part her folds with one hand,and blow gentle cooling air down on her hot sex, and make her writhe as she tried to force me closer.

It was a game, we both knew I would soon be licking and sucking gently, oh so very gently, never losing control, never hurting, my ears tuned to the slightest sign I was doing too much or too hard or any change in heartbeat showed pain. It never did, her heart did speed up but only in desire and anticipation.

My cold tongue always seemed to melt and warm when I pushed it inside her, and found her sensitive g spot, which I would tease and excite a little but not enough, enjoying her pleasure and her desperation, my palm on her clit, tenderly massaging and feeling every sensation as it swelled up against me and became needy and finally completely desperate so I would leave her sex and suck in her poor, hot clit and allow her the same release she gave me. The feel of her pulsing on my tongue, the smell of her arousal, the taste as she released her liquid pleasure into my willing mouth, back in place the second she was done with it on her clit.

My mind was picturing it like a slow playing video and my pants were tight and restricting and I almost feared embarrassing myself at the table.

I quickly thought of the budget I had been juggling at work today, how much profit did we keep, how much did I divert to charities, how much did I stash away for a rainy forever?

Bella blushed and I feared she was reading my mind.

Not the budget though,but the thoughts that I had locked away that I could still hear hammering to be released.

She was a nice girl, a good girl, she would slap my face if she knew what I was thinking.

She would never want to be intimate with me after one date, I knew she had morals and standards and she had only bent them for me, for our intense love, because we needed to express ourselves in every possible way. I had wanted to wait until we were married but marriage was so far away, Charlie would never allow it while we were in High School, and my restraint may have worked and gotten us through had she not desired me as much as I desired her.

I tried, she tried.

I don't think she tried nearly as hard as I did, her hands were always inside my shirt as we kissed, touching and feeling and trying to enter my pants. I had to still them and growl at her, but she persisted and when she turned seventeen, I allowed us to do some things, touching, feeling, bringing each other to release by hand and by mouth. Never full sex, always close but never truly inside her body when I released. On her eighteenth birthday, I gave in and took her. She never allowed me to buy her gifts, she was adamant about that so when I begged for special permission to give her something meaningful for her eighteenth birthday, she had told me exactly what that something was to be. No money involved, just her and I and our love.

We met in my meadow and I had taken a blanket and pillows and a picnic basket there already, and I knew this was the real test.

The other tests paled by comparison.

My brothers had warned me, when I achieved my release it would be far more intense than by her hand or mouth, but they were pleased we had started that a year earlier so at least I could gauge when my orgasm was about to happen, giving me time to claw a tree or the earth , anything to divert the extreme sensations being inside her would evoke.

Jasper had told me to bring about Bella's pleasure first, and then see how intense it felt, see if I could finish inside or if I should pull out.

He alone had experienced sex as a human with humans, as a vampire with vampires, and as a vampire with humans, before he met Alice.

Once his newborn stage had passed, he had been the bedmate of his mistress, Maria, then he had left her and had taken his pleasure from various vamps and humans along the way. Naturally at first , he had lost all control and killed the human girls as he exploded inside them, but he had learned control, although sadly the first time he actually kept a human alive after orgasm, his bloodlust kicked in and he drained her while still inside her body.

It had shaken him and he had resisted the sexual needs his body wanted for some time. Then he came upon a group of human women living in a female only commune and they had coached him along, having had the company of vampire lovers before, and he had spent an entire pleasurable year having sex with humans without incident.

This was all unnecessary as things turned out, as once he decided to take a mate, he left to search for the ideal girl and he found Alice, already a vampire, already ready and waiting for him, so his skills were never needed again. But he was happy to explain in detail every thought, feeling and reaction he had experienced in this dance of passion with the human girls, so I went in knowing how it would go down from a vamp who had been there and done that.

Invaluable.

Bella had not been even slightly nervous, was she ever? It seemed the more danger she was in, the more she enjoyed the thrill. She had dressed in a lovely, long, almost opaque white flowing dress, and she looked like a vision, an angel, and she had thrown the dress off herself and stood naked before me, happy and proud and with no signs of any hesitation or fear.

I had removed my own clothes in a flash and she had smiled and reached for me, stroking my erection, kissing it lightly, making me soar and fly with passion and desire and just the purest form of love and devotion.

I had stroked her breasts and paid homage, licking, kissing, sucking her buds inside my mouth, laying her on the blanket, covering her in petals from the many wildflowers surrounding us. She had smiled and gathered handfuls of the pretty flower petals up and tossed them all over us as I hovered and worshipped her , my mouth pleasing her sex, making her release in deep and throbbing pleasure, then plunging straight inside, my ice cold erection sealing off any attempts her body made to bleed.

She had cried out once but I started the dance and she had joined in, sighing and encouraging me in deeper and deeper, until I could feel her all around me, clinging to me, holding me inside her, then I made the almost fatal decision to bring her to her release again and gently stroked her clit with my hand while my body longed to hear hers sing and explode, and when it did, she took me with her, no warning.

I had expected to have time, to need to build up more after she finished, and when it happened so fast, I barely managed to turn my head in time to latch my mouth onto a pillow and not her neck, just inches to one side.

I swear I felt my dead heart pound in fear, and then exhilaration as she cried out my name in the heat of passion, completely unaware I had almost ended us both, for had I killed her, I would have gone to them and lay before their mightiest guard and let him tear me limb from limb.

She had opened her eyes and laughed as the gentle breeze caught the soft, white, tiny feathers and blew them about in the air surrounding us.

"Edward, how beautiful, like we are in Heaven inside our very own cloud."

She had no idea how close she had been to Heaven that day.

I never told her, I could not bring myself to spoil her joy and satisfaction.

She had wanted more, when had the girl ever been satisfied with what I offered, always she wanted all of me, so I had lain behind her and entered her from the back, another pillow between us, and when it happened I had pounced without thought and shredded the soft obstacle and only stopped and regained my senses as my mouth closed on the back of her neck, sucking on her skin, my teeth a bare sliver away from breaking her skin. I had pulled back, merely scratching her, and I tasted the tiniest taste of her nectar, her sweet blood, more powerful and heady and amazing than any before. I had drained many scoundrels and loose women who had murdered their unwanted newborn children, and their blood was water compared to the minute drop I tasted of hers.

I had tasted it before, in the ballet studio, and the reminder of how very sweet it was, almost undid me.

I moved faster than ever before, and destroyed half the forest before coming back to lie behind her, the mere scratch barely visible on her neck.

"Did you leave?" she asked me, turning and hiding that revealing mark.

We had lain together and cuddled and kissed but I had refused any further sexual contact, saying it would be all the sweeter next time if we waited.

That night I was fighting my conscious, if I kept making love to her, would I slip? Would I kill her?

My mind was at war within itself, arguing I must leave her alone, go away, then laughing at the very idea I could ever leave her, ever live without her. Then the party happened and I no longer had a choice.

She would die, be it by accident because Jasper lost control again or by my hand, as I made love to her. Either way, she would be just as dead.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have run with her and changed her and kept her with me for eternity, especially now we knew we could age ourselves.

We would have never known Renesmee had been conceived, if we did know somehow, then we could have waited and I would have changed her after the delivery.

Too late, too late.

The tension in the car as I took her home was like a third presence. I could smell the effect I had on her and I breathed in her aroma, the arousal was sweet and tangy and I could almost taste it on my tongue.

Bella smiled at me and I opened her door and helped her step out of the Volvo.

I had never been able to sell this car, it had always smelled faintly of her and now the scent was replenished.

She opened the front door and I followed her inside. A large coffee cake sat on the table and I wondered if she had been simply offering dessert after all.

She sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside her so I sat and faced her.

"Do you seriously want cake.." she started but never finished because my lips were on hers and she was kissing me back and she may not remember but I did.

Her taste! I let her go so she could breathe but my body had begun something it longed to finish.

"Bella" I murmured.

"Edward, we are both adults, not schoolkids. We can have sex without strings."

That sobered me. Without strings? I want the strings.

I leaned in and kissed her again and hoped she would change her mind and want the strings, too.

My hands were everywhere, touching, feeling, remembering and I knew I was lost. If this was a one night thing, then I would make sure it was a night she would never forget.

I had to have her, it was that simple. She stood and led the way to her bedroom. Her bed was freshly made but she had left the covers folded back, ready.

Ready for her to slip in to sleep, or ready for us?

I slowly removed my clothing, my eyes never leaving hers. She unzipped her dress, blue, so becoming, and her panties and bra matched.

I walked to her side and held her tightly, kissing her nipples through the midnight lace.

Without thought, I tugged and it shredded in my hand and fell to the floor in tatters.

My mouth was on her nipple, taking in flesh, mouthing her soft breasts and sucking as much insde as I could. I felt her shake and heard her moan and reach to pull me closer.

My hands were all over her back, holding her to me, exploring her soft swell as I slid one hand down to cup her backside and lift her, her panties suffering the same fate as her bra.

I guess I paid for them so it was okay.

Her sex was right there, against me, luring me in, and I was in no shape to resist, it had been so very long.

I felt her tug my boxers down and I let them slide until I could step out of them, then I carried her to her bed and lay her down and my mouth smiled at the sight, Bella, open and ready, laying before me.

I slid inside, unable to even partake in foreplay, I had to be inside and be buried in her warmth, now.

She gasped as I entered her, the coldness new to her again, she looked puzzled and frowned a little at me.

"Medical condition, low blood pressure, cold skin" I gasped as she slid herself up and down against me.

"My God, I thought I was insane. I kept dreaming of ice inside me, turning me on, making me dream of sex and being cherished in some unknown persons arms. I even..."

"You even what?" I encouraged her to tell me, feeling for her clit, rubbing it gently, rhythmically.

"I put ice inside myself, sometimes. I could never work out why it made me feel so ...sexy."

"See, you do remember some things about me."

"Memories of this have kept me satisfied in my years of loneliness. I love the feeling, Edward..."

She started to shake and looked at me intently.

"Yes, I remember this, do you? Do you remember me bringing you undone? With my 'very talented fingers' and my mouth and my erection. Do you remember, Bella?"

"I am seeing wildflowers, were you behind me, were there birds? I am seeing white feathers falling."

I felt myself ready to explode and pulled out, and let my seed flow and spurt onto her stomach.

The intensity fell by a hundred times once I left the inside of her body and I managed to resist biting her or anything else.

"Oh my God, I didn't even think about contraception, thank Heaven you did." she cried.

Me? All I had been thinking was , don't kill her.

She wiped herself off and I sat beside her on the edge of the bed.

"That was so amazing. Thank you. But you didn't come. Let me taste you, please Bella."

She smiled shyly and bit her lower lip.

"Are you sure? Jacob would never do that, he said it was not his idea of fun."

I grinned, glad he was too much of a pussy to take my girl her favorite way. This was my job.

I edged her legs apart and licked her thighs and then along her slit.

"Edward" she sighed and opened her legs wider.

I slid my tongue inside her folds. My territory.

"Do you enjoy men doing this to you?" I paused to ask.

"Only you have ever done it to me, so, yes, I do."

Her hands tugged at my hair and it turned me on even more so I sought her clit and played with it with my tongue until she came on it and I lapped her juices, searching along inside her folds for any that may have escaped my notice.

"Edward, Edward, I hoped so much you would do this when we were at dinner tonight."

So, I was not the only one who wanted their dessert first.

Even if I ate food, I would have had to depose of it into the table napkin as I had, I even stole half her meal just to get it over with. Who knows if they will find it in their bin and wonder who did that.

"Bella, shut your eyes and just feel. See if you remember this."

I started stroking her folds with my cold hard cock and stayed outside of her sex, tempting as it was to slip back inside. I edged her legs closed and felt the friction as I rubbed myself against her hot skin.

"Bella, that feels so good, baby."

She looked at me, her eyes open with shock.

"No, this is not right."

She pulled away and flipped herself so I started again, from the back as she lay on her stomach and clawed the sheets with her hands and writhed as I stroked myself along her, back to front, paying plenty of attention to her clit.

"God, yes, I remember this" she cried, crossing her ankles, trapping me deep in her lower lips.

We had done this for months before we progressed to actual penetration. She had always preferred it from the back. She did remember, on some level.

"Talk to me, Edward."

God, yeah, I had always talked her through it. She remembered better than I did.

"Sweet Bella, I am almost inside you, I long to enter you and make love all night long, baby. Can you feel me, do you like this? Is it making you want me inside? Bella honey, let go, come for me, baby, come on me, let me feel your juices coat me, then I can let go and come on you, baby, come for me."

She cried out my name huskilly and shook and stilled and I grinned and let myself go as well.

She always called this her favorite game.

I lay behind her and spooned her body close and breathed her in.

"Edward" she said sleepily.

"Yes, baby?"

"I think that was my favorite game."

"It sure was, sweetheart."

Some part of us was back.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # #


	7. Chapter 7

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 7

Balancing

I returned to consciousness to the sound of knocking on my door and reached out to feel if Edward was still beside me, keeping my eyes shut tightly.

No cold body beside me. Damn it.

Morning sex would have been good.

God knows the sex last night had been amazing.

I have to buy condoms, I should have been prepared but who knew I was the type of girl who slept with Edward after one date.

I really can't count the other dates from years before, let's face it, I just used them as an excuse to not feel like a total slapper.

Today, I didn't care. Plenty of women embrace their sexuality and feel no need to explain their actions or excuse their need.

This was not the 1800's, I am not married or cheating on anyone, it's my body and if I choose to share it with some other body, I will do just that and have no regrets in the light of day.

"Sheesh, I will be there in a second" I yelled and slipped out of bed, naked, and grabbed for my robe.

Jessica was standing at the door with the boys and a big grin on her face.

"Go into Coby's room and fix that fort up you told me about, boys. Bella and I have things to discuss."

She grinned wickedly and the moment the boys were gone, she grabbed my arm.

"That was Edward Cullen here last night! I saw you two walk in from the car. He still has his old Volvo? And when I say walked from the car, I mean almost ran a marathon to get inside. So, he stayed a while, several hours, three hours and twenty two minutes? How long does it take to drink a cup of coffee, Bella? Were you talking all that time, and I hope the answer is no because if you weren't jumping his gorgeous bones, I am about to slap you to the floor."

I walked to the kitchen and poured us both a coffee.

"No slapping will be necessary, Jess."

"You did it? Bella, how romantic! You two were perfect in High School, God, I could not believe it when I heard he had left. Who saw that coming? I figured you two would have the wedding on graduation day, straight off the stage into the church, you always looked so in love."

"Yes, well sometimes things don't work out like they should. But maybe this is our second chance. I told you about my breakdown? I still don't remember much about him, Jess and I wish to God I did, because I want the feelings back. Last night was amazing and I want to do that again, well, again and again, but it was just sex. I am not rubbishing just sex mind you, sometimes just sex is fantastic, but I want to feel about him the way he feels about me, you know?

I guess I came here thinking I might find my forever guy and get over Jacob, though that's confusing too."

"Are you still hung up on Jake?"

"No Jess. It's too strange. Now I kind of understand what Jake went through in reverse. You know I couldn't get him out of my mind for a single moment. Well, I had this headache and Jasper helped me relax, remember how he always managed to calm down any situation at school, well, I came out of his office feeling like I never even loved Jake. How amazing is that? Like somehow the switch got turned off. Now I truly want the other switch turned on, the Edward switch. I think he wants me in a permanent way. He says he still loves me and he hasn't ever been with any other women. I would find that impossible to believe but it's Edward. He never bothers hiding the truth. Am I crazy to believe him?"

"I wouldn't care if he had fucked every woman in Seattle and the surrounding areas if he wanted me . Don't even think about it, you were with Jake, you didn't keep yourself for him alone. If it's a line, it's a pretty one. Just forget the past, you seem to have a knack for that, and go get him, Bella."

My phone buzzed and I checked the caller id and refused the call.

Goddamn Mike Newton.

When would he give up? I swear I have never encouraged him and his attempts to contact me here are just over the top and with his Jessica sitting here with me, and his son playing in my son's bedroom, not acceptable.

I have to finish this, even if it never started. Mike needs a cold hard dose of reality.

I doubt I would even look at him if he was literally the last man on earth.

"Do you want to call them back? Was it important?"

"Annoying client, I have to draw the line and only talk business in business hours. May as well start as I mean to go on, right?"

"Sure, you do have a child and a life, and what a life it is now. You are so lucky. I envy you again, like I did in High School. I wish Mike was like Edward, never giving up after all this time. I would take him back in a second you know. Lauren tells me he is still not married, and never dates. I kind of wonder sometimes, do you think he remembers me? Do you think he would want to meet his son and maybe be friends at least, now? I wonder if he thinks of me and regrets how he handled things?"

"I'm sure he would but think it through, Jess. Give it a few days and be sure you want to open that can of worms."

"Boys, breakfast is ready. Are you working tonight?"

She sighed and nodded.

"Fine. I will collect the boys from your place when I finish work and maybe take them out to eat. Micah left his pajamas here last time so he won't need anything. I bought a second sleeping bag so he has one here permanently."

"Thanks Bella. I will go get his lunch packed for school and his bag ready. See you shortly and don't think you got away with not sharing every detail of last night."

"What happened last night?" asked Coby.

"Your Mommy went on a date."

"So, what is there to talk about? I bet they did boring adult stuff."

"Yes, Coby, I am sure they did but some of us want to hear every detail of the boring stuff. See you."

She left and I faced my son.

"I would like to go on more dates, Coby. I know it sounds boring to you but for adults, dating is fun, kind of like your play dates with Micah."

Kind of. Well nothing like.

My phone buzzed again.

I felt like answering and giving Mike a piece of my mind.

I selected 'ignore' and went and showered away last night's lingering aroma's sadly. I am doing that again, Edward enjoyed it, and I had some recall while we were having sex. Hazy but delicious.

The boys chatted all the way to school and I waved them in and set off for my office.

I had a few meetings with clients booked and I want to speak to Jasper. Call it insane, but he has a way of clearing the old crap from your brain and making you see the truth.

Edward was standing at my desk, leaning against it when I walked in.

He looked happy but maybe a little unsure of himself.

"Good morning, Bella."

"Hello, Edward. I enjoyed our date last night."

"You did?"

He relaxed.

"You couldn't tell?"

"You did seem to eat your ravioli rather quickly,so I guess it was to your satisfaction."

"Yes, satisfaction on a date is always good."

He grinned and picked up a file.

"Sparke will be here in 15. Want to grab a coffee with me?"

"I would but I need a quick word with Jasper first."

"Okay, come into my office when you are done."

I hurried down to Mr Whitlock's office and his door was open so I went in, shutting it behind me.

"Bella" he grinned. Oh, I see word has gotten around already.

"Jasper, I need to know, did you hypnotize me yesterday? I mean, I don't care, I am grateful to have that stuff out of my brain at last, but I need to know."

"Can I ask why?"

"You remember Mike Newton? He has this stupid idea if he keeps hassling me that I will suddenly imprint or something. I need him to forget me and remember Jessica. She is struggling at a horrible job to support herself and their son, who Mike has never even met. I need him to wake up and be a man and take on his responsibilities and I need your help."

"Well sure, Little Lady, you lure him here and I shall show the man his right path in life. Jessica wants this, you are sure?"

"She thinks deep down he still wants her and no way am I living with being the 'other woman' on my conscience. I have never encouraged him, I swear."

"Bella, I watched you reject him over and over in High School. I believe you, honey. Just reel him in and leave him to me."

I opened my phone and laughed.

"Done. The prat has messaged me that he is worried I am refusing his calls and knows it would not be by choice so he is arriving here around...now."

"Well invite the boy over, we shall have a little tete au tete ."

I sent Mike a text , asking him to come to my office when he arrived and hurried back to Edward's office.

He had a coffee waiting but had drunk his own.

"Bella" he said quietly, walking towards me and cupping my face.

I stood still and looked in his eyes and almost flinched at the love that was there.

Why don't I feel it too? Why don't I fucking remember?

"Can we talk about last night?"

"Sure" I answered, panicking madly inside. What could I say?

"You know I love you and it will never be just sex for me."

"Okay."

"I know you don't love me yet but you will. I promise you that."

"I hope that happens, too, Edward. I want us back, I know it was amazing somehow, I just can't..."

"I accept it will take time. I need to know, did us making love help? You seemed to have some memory flashes."

"I did. I guess it did help."

"Are you willing to let us use it as a way to get back to where we were? I understand if you don't want to do it this way."

"Oh I want to do it this way. I just don't want to hurt you by being so far behind where you already are. I want to catch up."

"Bella, I can't even find the words to express what last night meant to me. It was like...regaining my religion. Feeling hope again. Connecting with the only person who I can connect to. It will happen for you, baby. I know it will. It has to."

"What if it doesn't?"

"Bella, I know I cannot live without you. That's a fact. I cannot live without your love either and I will give us one year to get back to where we were by fair means but if it doesn't happen in that time frame, all bets are off. We will be back. Agree?"

I had a feeling I knew his Plan B.

Jasper.

"I agree."

If that is what it takes to unlock my mind to the memories I need, so be it.

"Isabella Swan."

I turned and smiled, happy for the first time to see Mike Newton approach me. Edward dropped his hands and stepped back, clearly puzzled.

"Mike, how nice you could come here today."

"I missed you, I knew you would never refuse my calls by choice. We have that thing, right? It's getting there, we will be together."

"Mike, I am sure you will be curling up in your nice warm bed with a pair of eager and loving arms around you soon, maybe even tonight. Come with me. Oh, you remember Edward?"

"Cullen." he acknowledged, nodding at Edward.

"Newton" Edward returned, glaring,and strode into his office, shutting the door with more force than necessary.

Men.

Honestly, sometimes I think their maturity reaches it peak at 20 then goes down again.

I knocked on Jasper's door and he opened it and invited us in.

"Mike, so, it's been a few years. You look good."

"Thanks, Jasper. I didn't know you and your brothers worked here. We have never known who bought out David's firm and made it Masen's. Unusual in Forks, not to know these things. How come Edward now calls himself Masen?"

"He was fostered, remember. He reverted to his birthname when he turned 21."

"Oh. Natural, I guess. So, I am here to see Bella, I have a proposition in mind..if you get my drift?"

I shuddered and pretended not to see the little velvet box he slid out of his pocket and showed Jaz.

Jasper smiled and pushed Mike's hand back.

"You are going to need that tonight. Don't let anyone see it yet."

Mike winked and smiled.

"Gotcha. Need the romantic setting, and the roses, I have it all arranged."

If all goes to plan, it looks like I shall be babysitting Micah tonight, even though Jess will be calling into work sick.

" Mike, it needs to be perfect. I have a few ideas to run by you." Jasper winked at Mike and they turned to me.

"Oh, I have to run. I will leave you two to your secret men's business. I have a client waiting, but see you soon, Mike? Thank you Jasper, I mean it. Thank you so much."

Edward was somewhat frosty during the meeting with Sparke but luckily he was a man of a certain age and I flirted a little and dazzled him with my ideas and he hardly looked at Edward so it didn't matter. We led him out to the lobby afterwards and Mike was just leaving, in a frantic hurry.

Edward walked out with Sparkes to his car and I smiled to myself.

"Bye Mike" I called and he turned and frowned.

"Yeah, bye Bella, maybe we will run into each other sometime."

Oh yeah, code for don't call me, as I have no intention of calling you. I love it.

"Jasper, I love you" I cried and threw myself into his arms. He laughed and kissed me.

"My pleasure, darlin'. It was like taking candy from a baby. Took all of 3 seconds. Boy has lost his blinkers and sees the light. I hope Jessica has condoms handy."

"If you are through loving my brother, could you come and get some work done? I believe you have a meeting with Goldsmith and Pyke shortly?"

"Indeed I do, Boss." I answered and kissed Jasper with a loud smack.

I danced back into my office and laughed at Edward glaring at Jasper. Honestly.

My day got better and better, I was on a high over knowing I had solved Jessica's biggest problem by removing an annoying niggle from my own life and I left work early and collected the boys after school after she sent me a text saying she was 'unexpectedly' unable to.

Go Jess!

I took them to McDonald's and was not altogether surprised when Edward walked in, looking completely out of place in his suit, looking around like he had never been in a McDonalds before.

He stood at the counter, one hand in his pants pocket and frowned at the menu.

"A hamburger."

"Big Mac, Quarter Pounder..."

"Any will do."

"What size?"

"I don't know. Hamburger size?"

"Large?"

"Sure."

"As a meal?"

"No, as a deodorant. What else is a hamburger if it isn't a meal?"

"A meal includes fries and a drink."

"Fine. Fries and a...?"

"Iced coffee? Coke?" suggested the girl, rolling her eyes. I guess they rarely get Macca virgins these days.

"Coke" he muttered and paid as she handed the tray over.

He looked around and caught me biting my lip so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

"Bella, what a surprise. I just dropped in for a hamburger."

"Oh, do you do that a lot?" I asked, innocently.

"Yes, sure." he said, making a face at his tray.

"I'll eat your fries if you don't want them" piped up Coby.

I frowned but Edward had already handed them over.

"Would you eat the hamburger for me?" he asked Micah who nodded with his mouth full of his own dinner.

I reached over and took his Coke. Edward never drinks Coke, he always gave me his.

I stilled.

I just had a memory of Edward before! He was pushing his Coke towards me in a restaurant after I drank my own.

"Edward, you know that therapy you introduced me to last night to improve my memory?"

"Yes" he said warily.

"We need to do it again, I just remembered something. I mean, something other than what I remembered last night mid therapy."

"Oh" he said, and reached for my hand.


	8. Chapter 8

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 8

Meeting My Daughter Again

"Bella, it will be fine. Renesmee is different to other girls, she always knew you were her birth mother. She did think you were dead but now she knows that isn't true, she has been waiting for this meeting. I won't leave your side if that's what you want."

"I need to play it by ear. I will tell you if we want you to leave."

She sighed and rolled over in her bed and lay against my chest.

Our therapy sessions had not produced any more flashbacks but we were getting back into our old games and I used Bella's condoms, to make her happy. I have no idea if they are effective against venom, or as a contraceptive device for vampires, Jasper has no experience to impart.

I would love to put another child inside her but it would mean having to remove her from society as nobody else will buy the shortened pregnancy story. Bella seems to have a built in capacity to know when I am speaking the truth and that it is important to accept my words, no matter how bizarre they may sound.

"Thank you for staying all night."

I knew she had been sad to awaken that first monumental morning to find me gone but I had needed to hunt, desperately. Her scent rarely affects me now but that morning, it had been all too much . Her blood had sung to me during our coupling and laying beside her afterwards had only clouded my senses with her various aroma's, sex, sweat, her sweet breath, and the rhythm of her heart so close had made me a little unsteady.

I had the perfect human excuse ready.

"I only left that first night because you had not only your own child but Jessica's as well. Alice told me if I stayed, they would know and there would be questions. Your son would have spoken about it at school and I am sure that is not something you want him questioning or commenting on, especially to his father."

"Jake has no contact with Coby. It's not a concern."

"That will change soon, Alice has seen it."

Bella smiled and leaned up to catch my cold lips in her warm ones.

"So, the pixie still has that insane capability to guess the future then? I never believed in psychics until I met Alice. She ought to have her own cable channel. She could predict for the stars, tell them which movies are worth producing, which roles to take and which to run from. They would make their fortune with her fortune telling."

"Alice has no desire to share her talents with anyone but family."

"And me."

"You are family, you became family the first time we kissed and sealed our destinies together. Do you feel anything more for me, yet?"

"I constantly crave your presence now and look forward to each evening, willing time to go faster. These past few weeks have been the best of my life."

"Not yet they aren't. I agree, they have been amazing but never the best of your life. The old us was...awesome. We were inseparable. We were everything to each other. We will have that again."

She caressed me lovingly. I was getting into her heart but it was so slow, so gradual, sometimes I wanted to take her to Jasper and just let him dazzle her. I would never do it myself, I owed her that much. A promise is a promise.

I kissed the top of her head and went into her bathroom and started the water running for our shower.

New routine, we made love at night and in the mornings and then we showered together. Bella liked her water fairly hot and I loved that it made my own cold body feel warm for a while. I showered at night, alone, so I could have the water boiling and then would slip into bed and into Bella and she would appreciate the warmth, short lived as it was.

Our lovemaking was my reason for living. I wanted to be near Bella in any capacity but being inside her, that was my nirvana. I was gaining more and more control and strangely, the condoms reduced sensation by about fifty per cent so I had not even attempted to bite even though I could now ejaculate while still wrapped in her body.

She accepted the more common truth, that I stayed inside because we were using protection but it was much more than contraceptive protection, if only she knew.

Emmett and I condom shopped together, he and Rose were willing to help in any way possible, so they did the test drive and told me which brands were the most sensation killing.

The thicker the condom, the less I was out of control, the more I could keep inside Bella.

She seemed to love the ribbed varieties anyway, so it just made me seem more loving and responsible to use them.

Bella's small hands were all over me, washing me clean and exciting me to the point I had to shut my eyes and lean against the tiled wall.

She chuckled and next thing her lips were around me, exciting me further and I had to concentrate and keep control as she sucked and swivelled her tongue every way possible and I groaned at the feeling, hearing music write itself in my head.

She made me create, she was my muse in every way, my whole life is a beautiful song with lyrics too beautiful to express in mere human words.

She is verging on loving me but she has no concept of how we were before I screwed things up.

I rocked gently and let her take me over the edge, sliding out to come against the tiles.

"I am willing to swallow, you don't have to pull out" she said, for the tenth time.

She has no idea what she is saying. If I were a normal human maybe I would stay, but there is no way I am allowing my venom into her system.

Carlisle and I have had the necessarily embarrassing discussion and he has no source of reference, it has never been documented, sex between humans and vampires is not very common and Tanya, our most experienced vampire versed on the subject, has the advantage of being the indestructible one of the pairings.

Human semen causes her no problems at all.

I dried Bella off with a big fluffy soft towel and carried her back to her bed and sat her on the side.

She smiled and leaned up to kiss me.

My Bella, my girl. I felt so protective of her it scared me sometimes.

The Newton creature had manned up and married Jessica in a short service at the registry office and they were moving back to Forks. Bella had Alice and Rosalie now, and of course, Esme invited her to dinner constantly, so we played the charade of pretending to eat. Carlisle had painted us into a corner with his lies of our special diet so the plate was usually filled with some disgusting macrobiotic filth while Bella was served things that had once been alive in various types of sauces and gravies. She enjoyed Esme's cooking and Esme loved reproducing recipes she saw on the Food network.

Bella had given her a list of her likes and dislikes.

"No seaweed, that's just wrong. I grew up near LaPush beach, seaweed is not something I want in my mouth."

Sexual organs of a vampire, fine, but no seaweed, got it.

She dressed carefully and shook with fear but tried to suppress it and hide her apprehension from me.

It was a scary thought, meeting a child she gave birth to and forgot existed. Renesmee knew it was not Bella's fault and she had no control over her mind blocking, and I had the advantage of being able to read Renesmee's mind so I already felt I knew her well.

She and I spent many nights together once I slipped away from a sleeping Bella, and I always returned before she awoke. It appeared human girls found waking up alone insulting and disappointing .

Rose and Renesmee had shown me all the photos and Rose had remembered as had our daughter so I simply allowed both minds to filter into my own and I almost experienced what they had, having seen and felt what they felt from by sides.

Bella had to go the traditional route.

Rose greeted Bella like a returning God, and welcomes us into her house.

She and Emmett had bought a beautiful house near the forest and so handy for hunting. Renesmee could eat both human food and animal blood and blossomed on both or either.

I envied her ability to share a meal with Bella, both appreciating and commenting on the various tastes and flavors.

Animal blood fulfills our basic needs but most animals taste the same, bland. Mountain lion is a treat for me but I cannot live on them exclusively or they would be even more endangered.

The younger they are, the more delicious but Bella had such an effect on me, I started to see the cubs as cute and appealing as she had when we watched a nature program on the television with Coby and I could no longer drain any other than full grown males, worried to leave cubs motherless if I attacked a female.

Her humanity had changed me once before, brought me back to nearer her own conscious, and it was happening again. Any distance I had developed since we were apart was diminishing rapidly. I had to shut my mind before taking a deer into my mouth, her words and squeals of delight whenever she sighted 'Bambi' out the car window had made me flinch as I ate the cast of her favorite childhood movie.

I wanted to be good, I didn't want to be a monster, especially in her eyes.

I could be more human, I allowed her to mold me into what she needed me to be.

I smiled indigently as my Bella and our daughter talked and laughed and looked at video's, Bella's hand tightly squeezing mine as we watched the images of days gone by, as our child played and grew.

"You were certainly an advanced toddler, and those eyes, you were born knowing all the secrets of the universe" Bella correctly said.

In all birthday parties, whenever the women judged Renesmee had grown and advanced another year in a much shorter time span, Alice, Rose and Esme would have staged a birthday party so there were endless cake eatings and candle blowings to watch and smile at.

Bella had tears running down her face during these.

Jasper sat quietly in the corner and tried to keep Bella's emotions at a tolerable level as he could feel the waves of pain she was emitting over missing out on so much of her child's life.

I almost wanted to tell her everything.

Take the risk, tell her we could reverse the order of things, hand her a newborn Renesmee and let her experience her growth and progress, rapid as it would be.

I looked at my sister in law and daughter and spoke too rapidly for Bella to hear.

"What would you think about going back to being a newborn again, and letting Bella have that experience of mothering you from the start?" I asked her.

Rose gasped, no doubt unsure how such a thing may affect her relationship with her daughter.

Renesmee smiled and nodded her head.

"That would be a dream come true, Father. I long for her to do all those things Rose did for me. I loved being tended by Rose, she is a mother to me in every way but of course I want to have those experiences with my birth mother."

I would do it, for my teary eyed Bella.

I will find a way to tell her what we are and what we can be.

We need a new base.

I will takeover a company in Canada, maybe in the Rockies.

My cellphone rang and interrupted the moment.

"Alice?"

"You need to go to Forks, Edward. Something bad is going to happen. Bella needs to be there."

"You see danger in Forks and you want me to take Bella there? Are you insane?"

"She is not in any danger. It's Victoria, she is displeased you are making progress with Bella, she thinks she needs to add Jake back into the mix."

"That can't happen, he has imprinted. While Leah and their children..."

"Exactly. She is going to eliminate them."

I shut my phone, agitated.

Victoria was going to kill Jacob's mate and children.

We needed to go, as a family, and fight on the side of the werewolves.

My cell rang again.

"Too late".

Alice's broken voice said it all. The presence of the wolves had delayed the vision to the point she probably saw not the future but the present. Her vision of Leah and the young Black children dying was happening as she watched.

Bella's cell phone shrieked.

"Charlie? What? No, no..."

She dropped the phone and fell to her knees.

"Bella"

I flew to her side and held her shaking body.

"Leah...Raven, Ephraim, they are only babies, Edward."

"What happened?" I played the game, hating to have to put her through more pain by forcing her to say the words.

"Animal attack..they have been killed, along with their mother. I have to go to Jake. We have to get Coby."

My head exploded as I picked up the shrieks of agony Jacob was experiencing. I had allowed my brain to keep tabs on him, merely out of some protective instinct in my efforts to be fully informed for Bella's sake. Now I regretted it as my head ached and echoed with his cries of despair. I held my head in my hands and tried to lower both the volume and intensity.

My breathing was loud and ragged and Rose and Renesmee were alarmed at the sight I was projecting.

Rose grabbed Bella into a hug and Renesmee grabbed me and entered my brain, diluting the images and feelings.

Jasper was flooding the air with calm, but it did little against Jacob's intense agony.

Renesmee was inside my head, taking on the sheer magnitude of the sensations and controlling them.

Together we brought them down to a manageable level, so we could merely observe, not experience. Her gifts were so much stronger than my own.

"Thank you" I rasped, as my head returned to it's usual ordered state.

Bella had not noticed my distress, her own having taken over her emotions so fully.

I helped her to the car and we were at the school, Jasper explaining a family emergency had arisen, and soon we were pulling up at Charlie's door.

He was gray, ashen, agitated and shocked beyond words. Jasper immediately took hold of Charlie's manageable weak human feelings and brought them down to a level where he was back in control.

Human's feel things on a far lesser scale than vampire's so it was easy for Jasper to change Charlie's perceptions.

Bela was the only one Jasper had ever had to really concentrate on to change and control, for some reason hers were way beyond the average human.

When she had loved me before, the intensity had rivalled my own, shocking us all. We had assumed she only loved me with the weakness of a human but she had almost been one with me.

I wanted that back.

"Bella, it was over quickly. They would not have felt any pain" Charlie assured his daughter. He was looking better, his normal color had returned to his face and it was clear he was relieved the intensity had lessened and allowed him to be able to think and process his many emotions. He hurt for Jake, for Billy, his best friend, for his daughter whom he knew would grieve even for the woman and children who had usurped her place in the world and the place her own child should have had.

"I have to go to Jake" she said, looking apologetically at me.

I understood.

She had been his best friend all their lives, and they had been married, no matter it had all been a forced illusion.

I turned and held my hand out to her father.

"Edward? I am glad you are here for my daughter and grandson, even if I have wanted to hunt you down and shoot you in the past for the pain you brought her. If you had stayed, she would never have gone through the despair she did over Jacob."

"And you would not have a grandson" she reminded him."This is not about me, it's about Jacob. I need to be there. Now. Could somebody take us to him."

I opened the door and led her back to the Volvo. Jasper stayed with Charlie, keeping him under control, not letting his emotions run wild again.

Bella sat in the backseat, her arms around Coby, who looked scared and quiet. If it could happen to his half siblings, he feared something equally tragic could befall him too.

Alice had assured me Victoria had no intention of harming Jacoby, in fact, he would be a major player in the drama she was about to unfold.

Jacob was huddled on the floor in the corner of the house he had grown up in, Billy was sitting beside him, wailing out the customary cry of despair his people used to manage their pain in times like these. His voice was haunting and fierce and echoed around the room.

Similar voices reached us as the elders cried for the loss.

Jake looked beyond reaching but when my Bella touched him, he uncurled and reached his arms out to her, the spell he had been under broken now.

"Bells, thank the gods."

He stood and embraced my girl and his tears were full of regret and sadness and Coby approached slowly, unsure of his welcome.

"Coby, son, I am so sorry. I can't begin to explain." he said, brokenly as he pulled the boy in to their huddled reunion.

I felt my heart try to break as I watched the family they had been, reform in that moment. Where did this leave me?


	9. Chapter 9

**This is nearly done. My other username is KynziRose, and I have 2 new stories posted . I am not guaranteeing Bella and Edward endings on that account..maybe, maybe not. Read at your peril. My husband is working away from home 5 days per week so I am now a weekend wife and am bored, so I write a lot and shop on ebay. In theory, the more I write the less I shop so I have to write a lot. Cheers.**

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 9

Choosing.

Days had passed, Bella was loathe to leave Jacob, now he needed her the most he ever had. Now free of the imprinting, he could remember how he had ignored and tossed away his wife and child and he was beyond sorry for his actions, even though he knew he had no control over them.

"If only it had been you I imprinted on. Why didn't the universe give us one little break?" he said quietly as Bella sat beside him.

The Quileute death ceremonies had gone on for days as well but now they were done and life was returning to normal. Their grief would go on but now it would be quietly mourned, privately. They had done their crying together as a community.

The loss of a future chief is a major blow and Jacoby was suddenly back in the role as future Chief.

I wondered how we would handle this. Jake clearly had every intention of keeping the boy here with him.

"Jake, what if you imprint again, and forget Jacoby once more? I don't think he could handle it. He was two the first time, at least he was too young to remember. Now he is six, you will never be able to hurt him like that again."

"I can't imprint again. It's never happened. It's a once only thing, seeing it is supposed to last your entire lifetime, there has never been the need for a second time." Jake answered her.

Bella still looked unsure.

Billy was playing cards with Coby, teaching him how to cheat and laughing as the student surpassed the teacher.

"Well done, Little Chief. I owe you my house now."

"Nah, grandfather, I would never take your house from you." Billy looked happy again, despite the losses of Leah and the babies. Coby was back where he belonged so all was right with his world. Billy had the ability to live in the moment.

"I want to take a walk with you, Bells, is that okay? We need to talk."

"We need to talk, first, Jacob" I stated. He nodded and we walked outside, down towards the cliffs, they held no danger to either of us so we sat on the edge and gazed out at the rolling sea.

"I am really sorry for your losses, Jake. I mean that. To lose your mate and children.."

I shook my head.

"I know and I do thank you, Edward. Imprinting is like an all consuming spell and I truly regret what happened to Bella and Coby because of my inability to resist."

"It was out of your hands. We have a similar spell, if you will, but of course, we choose to bestow it on a person. "

"Will you do it to Bella to keep her with you?"

"Honestly? If it is the only way, then yes, I will. I am not losing her. I lost her once, look how that affected her. Then you rejected her as well. I would much prefer she chose to stay with me but I cannot promise to play fair now you are back in the picture."

"I don't think she ever loved me. Wait, was she under this spell? Did she choose me because of vampire voodoo?"

"It's called dazzling and one of the killers who murdered Leah and the children was responsible. I suspect it was Victoria."

"The redhead? She is dead, I may not have been able to save my family but I did take my revenge. The entire pack chased and caught the two of them and ripped them to shreds. I had them burned to ash and the ash pounded to dust just to be safe. I scattered the dust in the wind, in the sea and buried some in the earth.

There is no way those two are coming back."

"Who was the other vampire you killed?"

"A tall, muscle bound blond. His scent was new to us. She called him Riley."

"So, Laurent escaped."

"There was a third?"

"Laurent is more of a nomad than the others. He often parts company and goes off alone. So, he wasn't involved in this slaughter of your family?"

"No, just the two we killed."

"So, he is still out there. I wonder if he is willing to remove his dazzle from Bella? Jasper neutralized it but she can't think like she did before while the original dazzle is still in effect."

"Aha, this is why you are worried. We are dealing with a Bella who doesn't know she loves you? Sweet."

"Jacob, I know you are grieving and grasping to rebuild a family any way you can, but you cannot take my Bella."

"I think that is up to her, don't you? She has the free will to choose for herself now. I will be honest with you, Edward. The very moment I had revenge for the deaths, my heart was full of love for Bella, it's like I stepped back to where I was before the imprinting. I love my son and I feel bad at not knowing him these past four years but I will make it up to him. I will train him and teach him our ways. Bella will never leave him here with me, unless she stays herself. You must know that."

"I do, I know I am fighting both you and her love for her son."

"You can't win, Edward. I am the father of her child."

"I am the father of her other child."

"What?" Jake looked at me in complete shock. "She has a baby to you and she is still alive? That's impossible."

"Clearly it isn't. Our daughter was born some months after I left, when Bella went missing. She lived in Alaska with friends of our family."

"Where is the kid now?"

"She lives with my brother but she knows Bella and I are her parents."

"Does she know Jacoby? Do they play together? How weird that must be."

"They haven't met. It's tricky, he is half werewolf, she is half vampire."

"Whoa! Bella sure has one fucked up family. Though do you think this was meant to be? One human, bringing together two natural enemies? How do you feel around Coby?"

"Completely fine. He is not threat to me nor me to him."

My cellphone shrilled at that moment.

"Charlie" I read the called id.

"Hello Charlie. Really? I'm sorry, I didn't expect them. I will come straight away. Bye."

"Alice is at Charlie's and she has brought Renesmee. I don't understand what she thinks this will achieve."

xXxoOoxXx

Alice stood before me, her eyes shining, and I knew I was not going to like what she had to say.

"It's going to happen, anyway. You can't stop it."

"What, Alice?"

I saw in my head, a gathering of people. A wedding. Was she telling me Bella would remarry Jacob? Billy Black was there, Jake stood at the end of the aisle, facing back, looking for his bride. She walked past me and I could see her long brown hair down her back.

No, Bella!

No.

You can't do this to me.

You can't choose him.

She turned and I gasped.

Not Bella.

Renesmee.

xXxoOoxXxoOoxXxoOoxXx

I had to speak to Bella, before she found out. I grabbed my phone and called her and asked her to come back to Charlie's. I had no idea how to explain anything to her.

I stood and waited out the front of the house.

Suddenly I felt weirdly exhilarated, and knew I was merely feeling Jacob's feelings and thoughts again.

Did he know?

Bella ran from the car and threw her arms around me.

"I know. I feel it."

"What do you feel? What do you know?"

"I know what you are! And I love you. So much. I remember. Everything."

She smiled and hugged me close and I grabbed her and kissed her face, twirling her around me, lifting her into the air. My Bella was back! I laughed out loud, there was no choice now, she would choose me. Jake may have won her when she was under the influence but now she was truly Bella again, I had no doubts at all that I was the winner, she would choose me.

I wanted to grab her closely and throw her on my back and run with her. I wanted it to be just us. We needed time, to be us again and celebrate the fact for days, weeks, months, years. Nothing will ever threaten my relationship with her again, I will see to that. If I have to revert to my true nature and kill my enemies, so be it.

My cellphone rang. "Jacob" flashed the caller id.

"Edward, I just took out your other bloodsucker. The male with the dreads. He is currently warming my toes as he burns."

I shut the phone.

"Jake just killed Laurent, it must have been him that dazzled you."

Bella smiled and leaned up to kiss me.

"I want another baby. I missed out on so much, too much. I know Coby will have to live with Jake now but we can move here, right? I can work with Angela again and you can be the boss from here?"

"I suppose so. Bella, Renesmee and Jake are going to get married. Alice saw it."

"Really? Isn't there some law that says you can't marry your ex wife's daughter?"

"I don't think human laws mean anything to us now. Bella, you only survived the birth of Renesmee because of something different someone did,and we don't know who did it or what it was. I truly fear risking your life again in that way. Now you know our secret, I have to tell you, it is possible, and Renesmee is willing, for her to become a newly born infant again and you can raise her yourself, as my wife."

"You said she is marrying Jake. How can he wait eighteen years for her?"

"More like seven years, remember? She is fully mature already. And it's not Jake's decision, if he truly loves her, he can wait."

"Edward, he needs someone now. Weirdly, he is over his mourning already. Billy spoke to me for hours, explaining while the warrior is imprinted, nothing can come between him and his wife, and their cubs are the most precious things in the world but if they are killed, the tie is gone. We can't judge him for accepting their loss and moving on so fast. It's like they never existed for him now. He will miss Leah like he would miss any member of the tribe if they died but he does not feel like a widower."

"How truly bizarre. I cannot imagine ever recovering if anything happened to you, I think it must be the opposite for us. If we lose our mate, our lives are pretty much over. There is little point going on. We can never mate emotionally again, though we can choose to settle and live with someone we find tolerable. But to never feel that fire, that passion, I would rather not exist. That is why Victoria's entire life became about revenge, she knew once James was gone, the only strong emotions left were hate and the thrill of revenge. I killed her mate, so she wanted to kill mine, then her devious female instincts kicked in and she realized there are better things than death, having to watch your face as you spoke of your love for Jake, that tore me apart in a way that prevented me ever feeling the slightest bit of pleasure or happiness again. Yet you were alive, and I could not leave the world you existed in, so I was stuck here for eternity."

"Her devious female instincts?" Bella repeated back to me.

"Never doubt, the female of any species is far more deadly than the male. Had I killed Victoria, James would have merely killed me and been satisfied with that. She wanted to make me suffer the fires of Hell forever. To her Leah and those babies were merely obstacles in her way, she killed them like a human would kill an annoying insect. They were nothing, just roadblocks. But I was her toy and she was enjoying the game. Thanks to Jake, our future is fairly good again, so long as the Volturi are happy to see the way Renesmee is developing. They are watching her. Maybe she will be safer on the Res, married to Jacob. The entire pack will protect her with their lives."

"They didn't manage to save Leah." she said, sadly.

"But Renesmee is different. She has more powers than the rest of us combined. She will know ahead of time if she is under any threat. I am sure she will be safe with Jacob."

"He hasn't met her before, how will he switch from wanting me to wanting her?"

"I suspect, from what my annoying sister is flashing through my mind right now, he will imprint on her but she will be able to control the imprint and ensure he never forgets Jacoby this time. She will be there for the boy, Bella but what we need to do is work out where we fit into all this. I cannot live on the Res, and I know you will want to."

"Edward, my place is with you and I will need to see Coby everyday of course, but if he is living with Jacob and Renesmee, I can step back a little. So long as he remains a very constant part of our lives, and we spend a few hours each day with him, I can accept that. Your house is so close, and he can run through the forest and we can meet him there. It won't be a problem."

"Edward!" screamed Alice and I grabbed Bella and Renesmee and pushed them into the car. Alice and Jasper ran for the cruiser and Charlie, mystified but picking up on the emergency, jumped in the front seat and we headed for the safety of the Res. How ironic, vampires hiding from other vampires with their mortal enemies, the werewolves.

Renesmee ran from the car into a startled Jake's arms and he imprinted right in front of us. It would have been fascinating to watch and Carlisle would have enjoyed that but the fear and danger were still there, the Volturi were close.

They would not come on the Res but they would not leave either. They wanted something from us.

Alice stilled and I read her mind instantly.

They wanted Bella.

They knew she was human and she knew too much now.

"You have no choice, Edward. They will kill her."

I looked at my little human mate and sighed. It was always going to end this way, either she died at my hands or I changed her. There was no time for another baby but I was glad about that because watching her pregnant, never knowing if it was what Alice did to her that saved her, or something the now dead three nomads had done...we could not guarantee she would survive the next time. Seeing her fight for her life during the delivery would have been more than my heart could bear.

"Bella"

"It's time?"

I kissed her forehead.

"I will be there for you, all the way. It won't be so bad, Renesmee can control the pain, it will be three days of oblivion, it's the best we can do. Jacob, Billy, I need your permission to do this. You know I will do it anyway, but I want this to be something we all agree on, if possible."

Billy nodded and smiled and held his hand out to me.

"Oddly, Edward, we are family now. Renesmee, Bella, they brought us together. You have my blessing."

Jake stepped forward and pulled Bella into his arms.

"I am going to miss your heartbeat, Bells, and your blush, I love your blush. You have my blessing, Edward. Do what you must to keep her safe."

He stepped back and his arms went around Renesmee automatically.

"Where will we do this?"

Alice smiled.

"The meadow."

Our meadow.

Alice stilled then smiled.

"It will be fine, Bella. Faster than normal, but when were you ever normal? You will truly be my sister when you wake up. She won't feel a thing, Edward. Relax. Now, Bella, we have a few personal things to see to, lead me to your best bathroom, Jacob Black."

"Alice, this is hardly the time for a makeover." I warned.

"This is the exact time for one, she needs to be however she wishes to remain, forever. Just talk amongst yourselves."

Bella and Alice finally returned. Bella didn't look any different but Alice was pleased with herself , and Bella looked kind of in pain a little as she walked. I entered Alice's head then left quickly. My God, how do human women bear to endure that on a regular basis? Bella had felt more pain at Alice's waxing that she would during her change.

The pack stood before us, willing to form a guard around the perimeter, so we set off, Bella nervously clutching my hand, and her daughter's. Billy promised to keep Coby safe and occupied, and Bella kissed her son and promised to return soon.

"I will look a little different and you need to remember, it's still me. I am still your Mom."

"Yeah, you will be cold like Edward and Renesmee, but indestructible, Billy 'splained it all. I love you, Mom."

Alice had erected a fancy white tent and Bella and I went inside. Having mere minutes had not stopped Alice, we were confronted by a large brass bed adorned with roses, and with drapes of white fabric covering the sides, providing us with our own little private bubble. Bella laughed at the rose petals scattered on the bed.

"Alice thinks of everything."

Renesmee sat on the ground beside the bed, Jake beside her. From necessity, this could not be the private setting I would have preferred but it was for Bella's safety and comfort that they were all here.

The wolves were standing around the edge of the meadow, facing out, looking for any approaching Volturi. Alice had seen, there were only three, Jane and Demetri and Felix. She had seen them leave once they saw Bella, red eyed and so stunningly beautiful, with their own eyes.

They would know there was no chance of surviving a fight against the pack. Every child aged thirteen and over now had the ability to transform, so even though we had an entire army of wolves, just as many remained at the Res, guarding Bella and Jake's son.

Alice smiled again and held her hands out to Renesmee and Jacob and they left the tent, sitting right outside. They would be back, Renesmee would hold her hand as she changed, keeping the pain at bay.

My Bella would not suffer the fires of transformation as I had, and I was so grateful for that.

I held my Bella to me and kissed her warm lips and felt her heartbeat. I want to remember this.

I was a little sad still, that she had to become like me, but the reward, knowing she would truly be mine for eternity, made it perfect.

She blushed as I removed her clothing, slowly, gently.

Her body was free of all hair, and it affected me instantly.

My Bella, my little human girl, soon to be my vampire mate for eternity.

My own clothes were gone in a flash and I lay her down on the bed, whispering my words of love to her.

"I love you, and I promise to love you for all of eternity. You are mine and will remain mine forever more. Thank you, Bella, for choosing me and making my life worth living. I was nothing without you, but with you, I am everything. You are my everything."

I kissed her and gazed into her eyes.

"I know I promised to never dazzle you, but this would be the time to break that promise. I don't want you to feel me drain your blood, I can only leave a small amount so it will all happen sooner once my venom enters your system. Your last memory will be of us making love. Are you ready?"

"Yes, Edward. I do want this, I want you, I need you for eternity. One lifetime was never going to be enough."

I touched her body, so warm, so soft and kissed her breasts. My Bella. I regretfully pulled the white embroidered nightdress over her body, and knelt between her thighs, enjoying her bareness, tasting her for the last time. She released on my tongue, and I swallowed her juices down, knowing nothing but her blood would ever taste this sweet.

She welcomed me inside, as always and I slowly led her through the dance of passion, and as she peaked and her breath quickened and her eyes flickered in the Heavenly joy of our release, I dazzled the girl I loved, for her own sake and felt her relax in my arms. I pulled her nightdress down to cover her, and kissed her one more time. I pulled on my boxers, knowing we would not be alone for this last part.

My mouth sought her pulsing beat in her throat and my teeth sliced in quickly and I moaned as the warm, delicious nectar ran down my throat, curing the ache forever. Renesmee appeared at the other side and held Bella's hand.

Once I tasted my own venom, I licked her wound shut and lay beside her, my body spooning hers, and our daughter smiled and smoothed back Bella's hair. I pulled the pretty sheet Alice had provided over the two of us, and cuddled her body close, listening to heart slowing already.

"She is not suffering" Renesmee assured me, and lay beside her mother.

The two days and nights passed both quickly and slowly, at times it was just me and her as Renesmee left briefly to be with Jake to reassure him it was all going well, better than any change had ever gone before.

I talked to Bella and she gripped my hand tightly, so she knew I was there but her face was peaceful and her eyes flickered beneath the lids.

"Edward" she would say now and then, with a voice full of love.

Alice came in now and then, excited and impatient.

"Look at her Edward, she is truly exquisite."

"She always has been." I replied. I have never understood why the humans and vampires alike had not fallen instantly in love with her as I had. I understood the boys at school, lining up, risking rejection and humiliation because they had to try, had to take the chance she may choose them. I understood the weak and pathetic Mike, and his never ending hope and pursual of her. How could he not? How could he settle for Jessica when this beautiful girl was still free, out there in his world, available. It had taken 'vampire voodoo' to steer him away from her neverending lure.

She was always the most beautiful creature in the universe but I guess I am lucky for had they all seen her clearly, she may have chosen someone else, not me.

Alice washed Bella's body each few hours and changed her clothes.

"Hmm, do you think the pink is too...pink? I think the green looked better."

"Alice" I growled."She is not your personal Barbie doll. Leave her be."

"Edward, don't be such a man, she will want to look her best when she wakes up. I am getting that blue dress I made her for her wedding. Be right back."

"What blue dress, what wedding?"

"Edward, you were always going to marry her, don't pretend you didn't know that. I made her several dresses over the years, I never knew which one was right. The blue will be a fantastic dress to wake up in."

The morning of the third day, she writhed for a moment and Renesmee had to concentrate all her powers into her mother's mind.

She gasped in relief when Bella's loudly accelerated heartbeat finally skipped then stopped.

It was done, over. She was mine.

Renesmee kissed my cheek and left.

"Bella?"

"Edward" she trilled. Her eyes were looking at me and the love was obvious and clear.

"Thank you for talking to me and holding me, I knew you were there."

"I could not leave, not for one second."

"I know. I love you."

She sprang from the bed then looked shocked at how fast she had moved.

"Whoa."

I laughed at her reaction.

The entrance to the tent opened and a hand slid in and full length mirror.

"Alice" I warned.

"Shut up , Edward, She needs to see how unbelievably gorgeous she is. It's a woman thing."


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks for reading, and sticking around until the end. If you are a reader of my other stories, please say in your review which you want me to finish next, starting Monday. I think there's only Touch Me and The Lighthouse not finished now, so whichever gets the most votes will be first. Cheers. Avagoodweegend.**

Forgetting Edward

Chapter 10

Gifts For The Newborn

"I have to teach you to hunt. Feel the burning in your throat? You need to drink to ease it. We will go into the forest once we show you to Jane and she leaves and takes her henchmen with her. Bella, you are still the most beautiful creature in the universe."

She smiled and approached me in a flash, and laughed.

"Geez, that will take some getting used to, I was here before I even finished the thought."

She put her arms around me and I gasped in shock. For the first time, I was the one in danger of being crushed by her.

"Loosen up your grip a little, you are stronger than me now."

Her eyes widened in alarm

"Sorry, sorry."

She stepped back, afraid.

"Bella, this will pass, you just have to think before you grab. You cannot do any permanent damage to me anyway, look, I am fixed already."

She examined the place she had dinted with her enthusiastic arms.

Smooth and perfect again.

"You will have to learn how to touch Jacoby though, even Jacob. Maybe you should not even try to touch him."

I don't know where that came from, she is truly mine now but I guess the old jealousy still hasn't realized completely.

"Knock knock" called an enthusiastic Emmett, walking into the tent carrying a dazed but still alive deer in his arms.

"I thought you may like take out as your first meal."

He grinned, and whistled as he looked Bella over.

"Man, Rosie is not going to like this, she just got eclipsed and lost her title as World's Most Stunning Vampire."

"Emmett, don't be silly" trilled Bella.

"Look at yourself" I said softly and she turned and looked in the mirror Alice had given her.

Her face looked shocked and she gazed with an open mouth at the reflection of herself, the new Bella.

Her hair was darker, black, straight and longer now. Her skin was even paler and more beautiful, her body barely changed, having been perfect already before.

She pulled Alice's blue dress off, over her head and stood completely unselfconsciously in front of us.

"Out, Emmett" I ordered, watching my brother gaze lustily at my mate.

He lay the unconscious deer on the floor and reluctantly left, taking in another look as he closed the tent flap.

"Emmett!" I warned.

"Sorry, sorry, I always knew she had the most engaging personality but now, man, you are the luckiest bastard in the fucking universe."

"Yes, I can't wait for you to tell Rosie that."

He sighed and walked away.

"My scars are gone" she said, examining her abdomen, now smooth and flawless.

"Is that okay?" I asked.

"I kind of liked knowing Coby came out of there. I will get used to it. I like my ass, it's kind of perfect." she said, turning so it showed in the mirror and she looked over her shoulder.

"And my boobs. They dropped a little after breastfeeding. Look at you now, Girls, back to your former spot and so much perkier. I think I like this whole vamped up vampire thing, Edward."

Chuckled and circled my arms around her waist.

"You were always perfect in my eyes,love. But I am happy you are happy."

She carefully put her arms around me and leaned in and waited for me to kiss her lips.

"My God". I swooned. She had tasted like nectar before but now her taste was enhanced.

"Bella, I have to taste you."

She was lying across the bed before I even took my now empty arms down, her perfect legs apart.

I sunk between them and hesitantly licked the length of her inner folds, and had to stop and rest my head on her thigh.

I had feared she would lose her wonderful taste but it had transformed into something way more potent.

Now I understood how Tanya was able to have those many men begging for more from her.

"You taste...indescribable. Like...life." I murmured.

I cautiously licked her again, scared I would not be able to stop ever.

"Bellaaa". I felt my body come undone and my boxers were suddenly drenched as I had released without thought.

"Edward, get that inside me now and stop wasting it." she growled quietly.

I ripped my saturated shorts away and plunged inside and an orchestra exploded inside my head.

"Bella, Bella, Bella" I chanted, rocking in and out, hearing the main instruments climb and soar as we made love.

"Can you hear that?"

"Yes!" she cried and pushed herself closer, rocking me harder.

I could hear every instrument individually, violins, cello, harp, all were sweetly playing, rising, reaching the climax as she shuddered and jerked beneath me, clawing at my hair.

I flinched, as her hands tore at it but nothing could dampen the passion as the choir of angels sang as our bodies climaxed together.

I gasped for what seemed like necessary oxygen intake, and lay still on top of her.

How on earth do my parents and siblings ever manage to leave the bedroom in the mornings?

Will we get used to this?

Dammit, my stupid brain had delayed this for years? If I'd had any idea what it could be like, I would have lured her out of that Biology classroom the first day, dazzled her to love me and changed her there and them, in the forest behind the school.

Consequences be dammed.

Sure, it had been a fun journey but in this case, it was all about arriving.

"Wow" she said, looking at me, grinning.

"Wow indeed" I answered.

"That was..."

"It was."

"Can we..?"

"I think you should eat something, Bella."

Her eyes lit up and sparkled.

"I didn't mean me. I meant the deer that is starting to awaken on the floor."

I held it and quickly killed it painlessly and showed her where to bite into it"s artery in it's neck and she tried, and succeeded first time.

Her arms grabbed the body and she would have squeezed it to death as she drank it down and emptied the whole animal in an instant.

"Hot damn, now I know why you all screwed your noses up at human food. That was the best thing I ever tasted."

She dropped the carcass and walked towards me, licking the remaining specks of blood from her lips. She was amazingly free of any blood. Usually the first few feedings are disgustingly messy occasions.

She circled me, watching my eyes. Suddenly our roles had been reversed, I was her prey, she my hunter.

She moved faster than light and her red full lips encircled my cock and I gasped at the sudden assault on my senses.

"Mmmm" she murmured loudly and sucked me into a delightful state , I had always enjoyed her blowjobs but this...this made them disappear from my memory.

"Bella, Bella, Bella" the chant had me hypnotized as I rocked deeply into her throat and for the first time, I ejaculated deep inside her mouth.

She cried out, licking me hungrily.

"Edward, you taste better than deer's blood" she cried in amazement.

"Nobody has ever said that to me before" I murmured, standing beside her, running my fingers through her impossibly softer hair, nuzzling her long, pale neck, biting on her exquisite little shell of an ear..

Everything about her was so...perfect.

My few fears I would miss her heartbeat, her blush, her smell..my God, I had no idea they would lose relevance the moment she became this, something so much more.

"Um, are you two ever coming out? Jasper and Alice are in the forest, humping like bunnies, you really need to tone it down around him, you know" shouted Emmett.

We both laughed and I know we would both have blushed if we could.

I pulled Bella's dress over her head and took her hand, kicking the deer corpse out of the way.

The gasps of shock greeted us as everyone looked at my beautiful Bella and I felt immensely proud of myself. I waited 109 years for her but it was so worth the wait. I had waited and saved myself for the best and now she was mine. For eternity.

No longer would I envy any other creature in existence.

I had the best mate possible, all theirs now were lacking in her shadow.

I made her into this Heavenly being, I felt a little of what God must have felt when he made Adam and Eve, but my creation was far superior to his.

I knew in that moment, she was right. She was always right.

Only a instrument of God could have changed her from a human to this true masterpiece, I did have a soul. And she was right again, I must have a truly magnificent one.

I had tortured myself for so long, over nothing. I had thought my superior brain knew it all, but in that moment, we were Adam and Eve.

We were perfection.

Renesmee ran to Bella and held her tightly, Jake looked stunned and licked is lips. Interesting, even his imprinting with Renesmee was not blinding him to the beauty of my Bella. I smirked at him and he blushed and turned away, adjusting himself.

"Um, Nessie, we need to go bond" he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her off into the forest.

I had worried the mating between the two of them would bring some parental urge to kill him into being, but no, it was right.

I had my Bella, how could I deny anyone the right to fully enjoy their mate?

I know I will be.

"Charlie? Will he recognize me?" she whispered.

"Uh, yeah...Surprise!" shouted Emmett.

"What's happened?" I growled, seeing the images flashing through my mind.

The Volturi had decided he was about to learn our secrets so Emmett had bitten him, and he was still changing, but very close to the end.

Renesmee had convinced his mind he was not feeling pain, but pleasure, so he was happily writhing in the bed of Sue Clearwater, Harry's widow and she was chanting ancient Quileute spells as she sat and waited for her man to finish changing. She had lost her daughter and grandchildren but gaining a new man was filling the void in her heart and Jasper had dulled her grieving and filled her with anticipation and hope of a new start instead.

I wondered if Charlie would change her, in turn. He was sure to want to keep her for eternity, unless he decided to merely let her live out her life naturally, and age with her, then start again with another younger woman once she died.

Who could possibly make the decision to only spend a natural human lifespan with the woman they loved? Only a fool, such as I had been.

I had thought myself selfless for resisting changing Bella years ago, how wrong I had been. I was being selfish, keeping her from her destiny. It was clear she was born to be my mate, and I had stupidly stumbled about, delaying the inevitable, risking her life over and over again.

I shook my head.

I had thought my brain superior because why?

Learning the lessons at school, parroting the facts back to teachers, a recoding device could do that and it had no brain.

True intelligence was being able to see the right path, and choose the right future, and do it wisely.

I was an idiot.

Not now, I finally got it right.

I smiled at Jane as we approached her and the two men at her side bowed to us.

"You two will rule over all vampires one day soon. And that dhampir, she will be the third.

The Volturi leaders will no longer be needed, they will finally turn to ash and move on. Aro, Caius, and Marcus have been eclipsed." Jane informed me.

"I have no intention of taking my wife and daughter to Volterra, she has a human child here."

"Edward, I am not speaking of human time, once everyone she knows dies, she will want to be our queen."

Bella smiled and held a hand out to Jane, who took it and kissed my wife's knuckles.

"My Queen."

She bowed her head and I read her thoughts, all were full of respect and wonder, as she impatiently waited for the new realm.

"I shall look forward to serving you the rest of my existence" she said.

The three bowed again and Jane chuckled as they left.

"Oh, I am going to have such fun with those three old fogies, their days are numbered. I shall miss human blood, this new realm will make it law we drink from animals only, but I guess we can get used to that. I never liked Italian's anyway. Too much garlic."

"Better than Chinese" answered Demetri."I hate the MSG they ingest. It gives me heartburn after I drain them. At least animals only eat grass."

"And other animals" pointed out Felix.

"We need to start building up our Zoo, and wean ourselves off humans. I shall not miss the fatty ones." he shuddered.

I turned to Bella. "Well, I hope we enjoy our eternity as the new royalty, my love. I hope it leaves us a lot of time for ...private meetings. I will never sit on that throne and pass judgement on the vampire miscreants."

"That will be Emmett's job" trilled Alice, looking a little ruffled for the first time in her vampire existence."He will enjoy it, I have seen it . Bella, can we have the bedroom next to the one you and Edward occupy, because Jasper just did some stuff I didn't know was even possible for vampire's.. I love the inspiration you two give him." Alice laughed.

I scanned her mind and filed away a few of their activities.

"Whoa, I had no idea we could do that either." I gasped in amazement at the final scenario.

"Oh bro, you haven't existed until you try that" said Jasper, winking at me.

"I think having adjoining bedroom suites will be mutually beneficial" I agreed.

"I can read your minds now, you know" said Bella, winking at me.

Bella sat before her son and smiled at him and he climbed off his seat beside Billy's chair and sat on the grass facing her.

"Mom, you look hot. And cool. I have the prettiest Mom in the school. No, in the world."

Bella touched him gently, tentatively.

"You won't hurt him, Bella" Alice assured her.

Jacoby kissed his mother then ran after Jacob, eager to rekindle ties with his father, who was looking mighty happy. Renesmee smiled and blushed, as we took in her tattered clothing.

I tried to stay out of her head. While I was glad they were a couple, I didn't want to see the proof with my own eyes. Renesmee took Jacoby's other hand."Let's go to the beach."

Billy stood and stretched and walked towards Jake and 'Nessie'. Oh joy, my daughter is named after Australia's most fanatical football fan.

"Thanks for fixing my legs, Daughter." said Billy, walking down to check on Charlie's progress. He had no fear his old friend would attack him or any other human, Nessie had ensured every new vampire would embrace the vegetarian diet.

The existing vamps would have the choice of accepting their new fauna prey or being eliminated, terminated, whatever term you prefer. Alice has seen there will be very few pockets of resistance.

The New Order is already starting.

Alice started to laugh and only Jasper failed to get the joke.

"Jane just sampled her first vegetarian dish, a bush turkey. It has left her entirely covered in blood and feathers. I am glad I am not the Volturi leaders, she will take her wrath out on someone."

"So'"said Alice, clapping her hands."I had better start the preparations for the double wedding."

Her mind was showing me a new scenario to the other before. Now both Jacob and I waited at the front of the aisle and there were two beautiful brides walking down towards us, Charlie walking between them, with one on each of his arms.

"Thanks for asking me tomorrow to be your bridesmaid. Rose is going to want a deeper pink for the bridesmaids dresses, just go with it, Bella. Choose plum from the start, it will save you having a second lot of dresses made the day before the wedding when you give in to her. I quite like plum. Makes my eyes look less yellow."

Jasper turned, puzzled and looked at Bella.

"Why aren't your eyes red any more? You can't have assimilated all your own blood yet?"

"I drained her pretty much, Alice told me it would work out better, lead to a faster change." I told him.

Emmett approached.

"Yeah, I don't know what Bella's blood tasted like but if it was anything like Charlie's...great vintage. I hardly stopped myself in time. Damn, I am going to imagine that taste for a long time to come."

"Damn, I should have done that myself" growled Jasper.

"I would have shared" said Emmett, now the possibility of having to was past.

"Damn fine vintage. How many relatives do you have, Bella?" he asked. "Want any of them changed, 'cos I am your man."

"I think actually every Swan left is now a vamp and stay away from my son." she warned.

"Aw, that kid stinks. Sorry, but no way would he taste like wine. More like dog. I don't drink dogs."

"Good" she answered and grabbed him in a headlock and had him on the ground, on his knees in a millisecond.

"Damn newborn strength" he gasped out.

Rose appeared and walked up and placed her foot on his chest while he was prone and helpless.

"Really, you all forgot to invite me to the changings? I am only letting you get away with it because I am Matron Of Honor, the main bridesmaid, the important one." she teased Alice.

"I am making the dresses, I will just forget to sew yours properly, so it falls off you in front of everyone."

"Yeah? Hot." said Emmett.

Rose moved her foot so her Christian Loubouton was across his mouth. He growled and opened his lips.

"Bite that shoe and I will get Bella to kill you, Emmett" she warned.

"Have me killed and you won't have a mate" Emmett reminded her, getting up and dusting his clothes down

"Yeah, well I just saw Charlie and that man has made a mighty fine looking vampire" she answered, smirking at him.

"No way. He's like, old."

"Emmett, you probably went to school with his grandfather." Bella retorted.

Bella and I lay together in my old bedroom and she cuddled in close. The sex was still a little more than we could handle continuously yet, way too intense, so we were taking regular breaks to just snuggle in each others arms.

"Do you regret waiting, now?" she asked me.

"Waiting for you, never. Waiting to make you my mate? I don't know. I like that you fell in love with me on your own. Had I changed you that first day, it would have been 'vampire voodoo' love, not this. I prefer this. Are you sorry?""

"No, I am glad I had two babies. I loved having Jacoby, and with Nessie, I remember the few minutes I saw her after she was born and I have all her feelings and memories of her childhood now. It's enough, Edward. I have you and that's all I ever wanted."

I sighed.

"I wish I could erase the years of pain and agony my leaving caused us."

"I could do that" she said. "But it made us what we are today, we would be different people without those experiences. We wouldn't truly appreciate our love had we not been parted. We may have just taken it for granted. Love regained, now that is Paradise."

Maybe she is right. Maybe all the stumbling, slow, painful steps had to occur for us to be this right.

"I have only one regret. That you were ever with another man."

"Edward. My gift to you, I have wiped it from my memory. I only remember making love with you. It's like it never happened for me now."

"Thank you, Bella." I smiled and kissed her head.

Now she was truly mine.

The End


End file.
